


And the Autumn Moon is Bright

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Durin Family, Durin Feels, Dwarves, Dwarves In Exile, Gen, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-09 15:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 67,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin is injured by a monstrous creature at the Battle of Azanulbizar. The damage done by that injury haunts him for the rest of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to read a werewolf!Thorin story and I wrote one instead. I have no self control. I will do my best to work on actual things from my regularly scheduled fanfic world as soon as possible.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Minor **violence** , **gore** , and **body horror** with a side helping of **potential premeditated murder.**
> 
> Obviously the title comes from the poem from _The Wolfman_ \- Even a man who is pure in heart / And says his prayers by night / May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms / And the autumn moon is bright.

“It’s not an ordinary bite.”

“It’s a corruption in the blood - by the Maker, such things have not been seen since the War of Wrath, I thought they were a legend.”

The voices - belonging to Óin and Gróin respectively - sounded loudly in Thorin’s ears. They must have thought he was asleep and so he did not move, nor did he open his eyes, for fear that they’d stop speaking when they realized he was awake.

“Surely - such things can’t _be_ , not anymore, they just can’t,” Freya, his mother. Her words sounded like orders. Such things - whatever ‘such things’ were - could not be because she did not wish them to be. And her word was law.

“I wouldn’t have thought so myself,” Gróin said, shouting now, right next to Thorin’s head, he felt like. “But the _silver_ , Freya. What other explanation can there be?”

Thorin’s eyes flew open and he sat straight up on his bedroll. His heart sank into his stomach when, after frantically turning his head took look around him, he realized he was alone in the tent. His hand came up to his neck and calloused fingers traced the not-quite healed burns against his throat and shoulders. At first he’d thought that they were wounds from the bite that had almost - almost, but not quite - taken his life. But those wounds were healed and scarred over. Quickly. Too quickly for the bite of an animal that might be expected to grow infected and fester. That was the first sign that, far from coming away from the devastating battle remarkably unscatthed, Thorin was more deeply wounded than any of their warriors.

The silver had been the second sign. For when he complained of pain, sharp and throbbing in his back and neck, Óin parted his hair and stared in disbelief at the blistering marks left by his hair clasps on his skin.

“Hold out your hand,” he said and Thorin felt compelled to obey. Óin tugged a bead from the end of his braid free, pulling his hair in the process, but the little twinge of pain in his scalp was nothing compared to the way the skin on the back of his hand itched, then scalded as it went from pink, to red, to blistering where the bead was placed. Thorin snatched his hand away and Óin wasted no time pulling the rest of the beads and clasps out of his hair, sweeping out without a word of explanation as to _why_ the touch of silver should burn him.

Where were they? Thorin could hear them so clearly, but from the play of shadows on the walls of the tent, he knew they were standing far away from him. They were not even within arm’s length of the walls.

“Werewolves,” Gróin spat like a curse and Thorin cringed away, putting a pillow over his head, like a child, to block the sound, but he heard him still, clear as anything. “A dark magic upon the race of Men - and _Orcs_ , it seems, used for evil purposes. To make a new breed of monsters to unleash upon the world - ”

Something was thrown, into the fire, the logs cackled and popped and Thorin jumped, then grew furious with himself and curled up beneath his blanket again, reminding himself that he was alone, no one was there to see...no one was there.

His stomach roiled and he gagged with his fist stuffed in his mouth to keep from crying out for he saw them again, his grandfather - what was left of his grandfather strewn about the battlefield. Frerin, in pieces. The monsters - for they were _monsters_ did not eat the corpses as normal beasts would, taking choice bits for themselves, leaving the rest for carrion. Their teeth, like daggers, rent flesh and bone, clamped down and silenced screaming throats, bathed their snouts in blood.

No one knew what they were, all was chaos. Too small for wargs, but far too large to be ordinary wolves and ordinary wolves did not act in such a manner, frenzied by blood. Not even the most ornery creature, caught in a hunter’s snare, lashing out from fear and hunger. Theses creatures did not mean to scatter their ranks or make a meal of them. They meant to kill, savagely, with murder in their cold eyes and blood dripping from their mouths.

When his arms had been taken in the mouth of one of them, huge and white, its teeth sinking into his flesh, piercing and burning all at once, Thorin only thought to live. He writhed and howled like a wild thing himself, then battered the monster with an oaken branch, which splintered in its eye. It was not enough to kill the beast, but it was enough to make it drop him. A sword in its side did the rest.

Someone bound his wounds in the healer’s tents, Thorin did not remember who, too overcome by grief and loss to feel anything, even pain. He did remember Óin changing the bandages. He meant to change the bandages, at least, but found the wounds healed over not two days after the battle. It was too soon even for the legendary swift healing of dwarven bodies. But there were other souls in greater need than him and so Óin said nothing about it, aside from some idle remark about not wasting bandages.

Thorin too tried to ignore his scars where there ought to have been open wounds. It was easy enough to do when there were so many who needed looking after. When his father was gone without a trace. But then he woke with fresh burns on his skin and now Gróin was shouting about monsters.

The tent flap opened noisily, letting in cool nighttime air and his little sister. Thorin knew it was her instinctively, he heard her breathing and the scent that surrounded him was that of campfire and metal and cold spring water and something warm and bright that meant _home_ even here in the burnt-out remains of the land that so many had given their lives to protect.

Thorin put a hand over his mouth and thought he might be sick.

“Nadad?” she asked and his shoulders shook beneath the blankets. “Thorin?”

_Run away,_ he wanted to say. _Run far away, namadith. Can’t you hear what they’re saying?_

She could not; that knowledge sent a new prickle of fear coursing through him. Dís did not run, on the contrary, she lifted the corner of his blankets and curled right up beside him, hiding under his pillow as well until her hair bumped against his nose and all he could smell was her and all he could hear was her breathing and her heartbeat. She wriggled until her arms were around his middle and her head was tucked under his chin. Thorin wanted to hold her, but he was too afraid to move. Wanted to kiss her brow, but he was too afraid to put his lips to her skin.

“Are you cold?” she asked, feeling him shaking.

Thorin shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. Gently, hesitantly, he ghosted a hand over her matted black curls and then he wept into them. Dís, he realized immediately, had taken her silver hair clasps out before she’d come to embrace him.

“Aren’t you afraid?” he whispered.

Dís shook her head against his chest. “You’re my brother,” she replied simply.

Her only brother. A monster and a coward. Aye, a coward too. For when Óin came to lead him deep into the forest four weeks after the battle when the moon would be at its fullest in the night sky, he did not seek her out before he left.

* * *

Dwalin was still half-blind from the blow to the head he’d taken with an orcish sabre, but his left eye was keen enough to see Balin packing a long-bladed hunting knife and bow. He sat up so quickly on his bedroll that the blood rushing from his head made him feel dizzy and vaguely ill, but he rode out the wave of nausea, the sickness borne not from his recovery, but what he knew his brother meant to do.

“You-you can’t,” he choked out, fighting his way out of his blankets, stumbling forward, limbs still weak and unwieldly from the herbs he’d been given for the pain. “You _can’t.”_

Balin refused to look at him. When he spoke his voice shook, though his hands were steady as iron. “I will do what I must,” he replied quietly. “It...it isn’t safe. We’ve lost so many - ”

“And so you’d kill Thorin?” Dwalin asked, wanting to choke the words down even as he spoke them. The idea of trying to trudge forward, to carry on with Thorin, his best friend, his almost-brother _dead_ and by his own brother’s hand made him want to be sick. “You _can’t_ , Balin, you can’t.”

“I wouldn’t be - ” Balin’s voice actually broke then and he took a long breath to steady himself, hands braced on his knees. “Better this than to suffer that beast running through the camp, slaughtering those few of us who _have_ survived.”

“But you don’t have to...to _kill_ him,” Dwalin maintained stubbornly, unreasonably, like a child asking again and again for something they had been denied, hoping that if they just kept at it, they’d get what they wanted in the end. “Chain him up, if you must! He’s the heir, without him, we haven’t got - ”

“He can’t be,” Balin said, shaking his head. “Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? Don’t you think that if there was another way, any _chance_ we could spare him, I’d seize it? You - you aren’t the only one of us who loves him. But _think._ If we could chain him, if we had chains enough to hold him, he would require a guard. The noise, the trouble...over and over again for the rest of his life. Do you think that we could keep his curse amongst ourselves then? The people are angry enough as it is with all our line. If our own people did not end his life themselves, do you not think others would not seek revenge? Their own sons and fathers slaughtered by orcs and a monster-king having command over all?”

“He’s not a monster!” Dwalin only _just_ managed to keep from shouting. His throat was so tight he could hardly speak. “He’s not - he’s...you haven’t been to see him, you don’t know, he’s...he’s afraid, Balin, he’s terrified and now he’s being driven off into the forest, _alone_ and…”

Balin looked up at his younger brother then, after he’d drawn an arm across his face to wipe away the tears that began flowing even before Dwalin finished speaking.

“I wish there was another way,” he said thickly. “If I thought there was - ”

“I won’t let you,” Dwalin said, lunging forward and taking up the knife, only _just_ faster at snatching it than Balin was trying to stop him. Without another word, he was running outside, stumbling in the near-darkness. It was a miracle he’d been able to take the knife at all, he could hardly run in a straight line, but there was no one out to see him make his way into the forest. The sun was dipping low over the horizon, only an angry red sliver marked its final descent.

Desperate, his heart pounding fit to burst through his ribcage, Dwalin tried to remember what Óin had said. A cave, a clearing, something like that. Why hadn’t he gone sooner? Why hadn’t he gone _with_ him?

As he ran on, with an aching head and churning stomach, Dwalin was just conscious of movement to his right and on instinct that had been sharpened by the battle, he threw himself behind a nearby tree, thick, gnarled roots rising up out of the ground, black in the twilight. Óin, he saw, walking dazedly through the trees like one in a dream. Scarce had he taken two steps closer to Dwalin’s hiding place, but he fell to his knees, chest heaving with sobs.

Dwalin must have made some move to give himself away; he had never seen Óin weep before, not like that, not with such despair written in every line of him, it almost _frightened_ him, but for the fact that he was too full of fear for Thorin to leave room over for anything else. In any case, he gave himself away, for his cousin raised his short-cut auburn head and squinted into the darkness, brandishing a dagger.

“Come out!” he shouted. “I can see your eyes, I...oh. Oh, by the _Maker_ , why did it have to be you?”

Dwalin just blinked, unsure what his cousin meant, until he realized that Óin was staring at the knife, tightly held in his left hand.

“I gave him something to make him sleep, I haven’t any idea if it’ll...I _hoped_ , but you never really know,” he said, visibly exerting an effort to pull himself together. “Poor lad...that poor lad.”

The dark was coming on faster and the stars were peeking out through the velvety blue of the sky. Not a cloud passed overhead and with only a brief glance upward, Dwalin ran, treading the path Óin had already taken, ignoring what ever his cousin shouted after him, be it a plea or a warning.

The place could hardly be called a cave, it was a pile of rocks, fallen with a fissure in the front hardly wide enough for a grown dwarf to walk through without turning sideways and not at all big enough for one of those creatures they faced down on the battlefield to pass through. The thought heartened Dwalin and sickened him at once.

He approached the rock with trembling legs and a swimming head. He was in no fit state to do what he’d set out to do, not a bit. As he came closer, fear started to dig its claws into his spine - what if the worst _was_ true? What if all of Balin’s fears were to be realized, what if Thorin was already lost?

Dwalin’s mind was drawn back to those shiny red patches on Thorin’s neck. Silver had burned him. What proper dwarf could not bear the touch of precious metal?

“Don’t hurt him,” a soft, tearful voice crept up behind him and made Dwalin turn so suddenly he almost dropped his knife. Dís had sneaked around him, on his blind side and had her hands twisted together in supplication. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet as she begged him, _“Please_ don’t, Dwalin, please.”

“What are you doing here?” Dwalin asked, appalled. Freya would be furious that Dís had gone away - furious or terrified, which looked the same on her.

“I snuck away,” she said. “Ama didn’t notice, she won’t stop crying, I was afraid - I didn’t want him to be all alone...I-I was afraid someone would come, like Uncle Gróin said someone too...someone who might…I couldn’t...F-Frerin never said goodbye either...”

She was crying too hard to speak and Dwalin could not take another moment of it. He drew her up against his chest with his free hand and kissed the top of her head. “Hush,” he said quietly. “Hush now. I haven’t come to hurt him, furthest thing from it.”

“You’ve got a knife,” she pulled back and stared up at him, shaking like a leaf, poor thing.

Dwalin pressed the handle of the thing into her hands. “Never know what you’ll find out here,” he said, then tilted her chin up and looked down at her sternly. “Keep tight hold of that for me, eh? And you stay out here, hear me, lass? I-I’ll look after him.”

Dís looked between the blade and Dwalin somewhat doubtfully, but she sniffled once, then nodded twice. She trusted him, after all. Pressing one last kiss to her brow, Dwalin steeled himself slightly and squeezed into the mouth of the cave. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but once they did, he saw Thorin soon enough and the sight almost brought him to his knees.

He lay on the hard packed earth, naked, his back to the entrance. He did not move or look up when Dwalin came in; Óin must have knocked him clear out for he was motionless save for the rising and falling of his breath. Dwalin crept around him, his back against the rock.

Night had fallen, he thought to himself wildly. Night had fallen and Thorin was utterly himself. It might have all been worry for nothing, just a few strange scars and odd coincidences that didn’t mean -

Thorin made a sound in his sleep, a grunt of pain and his face contorted into a grimace. Then his limbs began to tremble.

Dwalin had seen sights on the battlefield that he would not ever forget. Sights that turned the bowels to water and set even seasoned warriors gagging. Nothing, _nothing_ had had seen or ever would see was as horrifying as what he bore witness to in that cave.

The image of a body reshaping itself, bones breaking and reforming, would stay with him forever. Flesh warped and swelled until he thought Thorin’s skin would burst, but it did not. Instead, thick, black hair emerged from every pore, covering the awful sight beneath his skin, but the noise never stopped. The sound of popping joints and twisting sinew was awful enough, but it was his friend’s screams that made Dwalin clasp his hands over his ears and back as far into the stone as he could. Despite Óin’s best efforts, hoarse cries tore themselves from Thorin’s throat until the shouts were no longer screams at all, but roars. The sound was purely animal, but the pain that prompted it was like nothing Dwalin had ever seen before in his life.

Unable to look away, unable to shut his eyes or stop up his ears, Dwalin watched as Thorin’s body flailed and reformed into something entirely new. His lips split and his sharp teeth made his gums bleed. When it was all over, a nightmare creature lay panting on its side where once Dwalin’s dearest friend had been. Bigger than a wolf, smaller than a warg, one of the vicious monsters of Azanulbizar come to finish what its fellow creatures had begun.

The only sound in the cave was Dwalin’s breathing coming too fast as the world around him grew grey on the edges and all he thought as his boneless legs collapsed beneath him was, _Don’t faint, don’t faint, don’t faint._

It was absolutely massive. Shaped like a wolf, aye, but huge, densely muscled and thickly furred with teeth and jaws that could rend flesh and bone in equal measure and claws that could mar stone beneath their points.

His first instinct was to lash out, to kill the thing before it could attack him or run before it regained its bearings. There was nothing of Thorin left in this thing nothing at all and the dreadful thought that his brother was _right_ bade Dwalin take to his feet, grab Dís and run back to camp with her before the monster burst through the rock to devour them.

Yet another part of him tried to take stock of the situation. The creature made no move to rise and attack him. Beneath his breathing he was conscious of a whimpering keening from the beast’s throat that bespoke pain, not bloodlust.

_You’re only afraid because it’s...because he’s so big,_ Dwalin told himself, groping the rock so that he could drag himself up to standing. _Horses are big too, doesn’t mean they’re going to eat you._

Swallowing down the bile that had risen in his throat during the ghastly transformation, Dwalin chanced half a step forward. One of the beast’s ears flicked and his nostrils flared, but otherwise he didn’t move.

“Thorin?” Dwalin asked, cautiously, nervously, hands raised as if a gesture of surrender would mean _anything_ to a beast such as that. The creature opened the one eye that Dwalin could see. Blue. He had Thorin’s blue eyes, eyes of the Longbeard line and the sight of that eye, more than anything else emboldened Dwalin to take another step closer.

The beast on the cave floor panted, then made some sound between a bark and a growl. He froze for a moment and tried to rise on limbs that could not make the barest effort to support him. When he collapsed again to the cave floor, he was still for a second more before he began to writhe again, a flurry of movement. At first, Dwalin was concerned that he was going to transform _again_ into something yet more terrifying or deadlier, but that was not to be. The beast only clawed at himself, at his ears, at his nose, his paws leaving gashes along his muzzle. Then he turned his jaws upon his own limbs, biting deep and sending rivers of red blood to drip down and stain the dirt beneath him.

Red. The red blood of Dwarves, not the black putrescence of Orcs. The relief was the first sensation Dwalin felt, then horror that Thorin was doing himself an injury.

“No, no, don’t do that, Thorin, don’t - ” Dwalin begged him, drawing close again. His hands were outstretched, but he couldn’t quite touch him, not yet, not until he wasn’t absolutely sure he was not going to be thrown against the rock and left with a broken neck or a battered skull.

Talking to him only seemed to make it all the worse. Thorin rose again on shaking legs, unable to keep himself upright, though he tried his mightiest to get away from Dwalin. He only managed to stumble back and hit the hard ground again, painfully if the whimper he emitted was anything to go by.

“Nadad?”

“Dís!” Dwalin hissed, furious when he saw the girl standing in the gap in the rock. The knife he had given her was hanging loosely from her hand and she was staring at the great black beast with wonder and apprehension all over her face. “Get _out,_ you - ”

But the words died in his throat as something extraordinary happened. The beast stopped trying to tear itself apart, stopped trying to get away. When Dís called him brother, only his great shaggy head rose and Dwalin saw both of those blue eyes go wide before the hulking thing lay back on the ground, too exhausted - or too frightened - to move.

It was Thorin, without a doubt. If that thing could understand the Dwarves’ own fathertongue, then it was Thorin to the core and Dwalin could have wept, he was so grateful that his friend had been too well-Made to be lost, even to this.

The knife fell from Dís’s bloodless fingers and she knelt by Thorin, closer than Dwalin dared. With both hands she very, very gently hoisted the massive head into her lap and she was pinned to the earth by its weight and sheer size. Thorin’s eyes squeezed shut and the enormous body tensed as his jaws snapped tightly together.

“Is he alright?” Dís asked when she went to lightly touch her brother’s face and her hands came away bloody.

“He’s alright,” Dwalin reassured her, reaching out to lay a hand against Thorin’s neck. The skin beneath the fur was warm and his breathing was regular - if a little too fast. “I’ll get some water. Clean him up. Just stay here and don’t make a sound.”

Dís nodded, all ready to obey his instructions. Dwalin patted her head reassuringly and gave Thorin one last look. He didn’t move, but when Dwalin laid a hand on his head in turn, he did open his eyes.

Dwalin tried to smile at him, a crooked, nervous effort, but Thorin seemed to relax his muscles if only a little. The powerful jaw never moved. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. “You’ll be alright, eh? I know...I know you’re frightened, but we’ll get through it. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

The heavy bones shifted beneath his hand and Dwalin decided that Thorin was trying to nod his agreement. When he left them, Dís wasn’t speaking, but she did card her fingers through the fur on Thorin’s head. But for his form, the soothing gesture wouldn’t have looked out of place between brother and sister. Dwalin wondered if she consciously chose not to pet him like a dog.

He had no waterskin, nor bucket to carry water, nor linens or bandages save the ones wrapped around his own head. His shirt had to make due, the hem of his tunic torn to strips to at least clean the wounds even if they could not make a proper binding. There was a cold little brook running nearby that would suffice for water and once he’d soaked the new-made rags he ran back to the cave as fast as his legs could carry him. And not too soon for he saw Balin approaching at speed, his bow in his hands.

“Stop!” Dwalin cried, watching his brother halt at once, though from the look on his face, he looked like he was about to work himself into a scolding. “Balin, it’s _fine._ I mean...it’s not, but...it’s as I told you. He’s...he’s still Thorin, I swear, he understands Khuzdul and he’s no danger, he can barely stand!”

The bow remained at Balin’s side and the arrows stayed in their quiver at his back. The expression on his face was doubtful, but he lifted his eyes to look on Dwalin when he asked, “He’s in that rock?”

“Aye,” Dwalin nodded. “And...well, he couldn’t walk out if he could get himself up off the ground. When you see, you’ll...just leave the bow by, it’s alright. He’s tired and he’s afraid, but it’s alright. He’ll be alright.”

He said as much to reassure himself along with his brother. Dwalin _had_ to believe that Thorin would remain as much himself in days to come as he was at that moment, that he would not be corrupted or poisoned as their uncle thought he must be.

He tried not to think of the rending of flesh and bone. Of how they would keep him alive and unnoticed in the months to come.They just needed to make it through dawn, then the next day after that. As long as they kept going, that was something.

“Please, Balin,” Dwalin begged, an eye on the quiver and arrows nervously. “Just...trust me.”

Balin’s head was cocked, he seemed to be listening for something he did not hear. Slowly, as if his body was acting in rebellion to his mind, he lay his bow down and with it went the arrows very near the mouth of the cave. Dwalin breathed a sigh of relief, but Balin held up a hand when he made to enter the fissure. “Let me go first.”

They did not have a long way to travel before Balin stopped dead in his tracks, a cry on his lips. Dwalin looked over his head and saw what had startled him; Dís was sitting just where he’d left her, but the sight of a half-grown dwarrowlass stroking the head of a giant creature whose very size and breadth would terrify a grown warrior was enough to give anyone pause.

“Shh,” she hushed him, looking up from her brother with a frown. “He doesn’t like loud noises.”

Indeed he did not. If massive wolves could be said to cringe, Thorin did, taking another half-hearted swipe at his ears.

“Now, now, what’d I just say?” Dwalin actually _tsked_ sounding an awful lot like his mother in that moment. “You’ve got those jughandles of yours and you don’t hear a word, do you?”

Thorin let out a huff of breath that might have been a laugh, under better circumstances. Dwalin dropped to the dirt beside him and set to work cleaning the gashes in his face and forepaws. Just a quick wash, just enough to clear away dirt and fur. Balin drew closer in increments all the while, staring and staring in mingled disbelief and tentative hope.

Either Dwalin was too clumsy in his ministrations (there was a reason he wasn’t a healer after all), or Thorin was hurting from an altogether different source, but when he put pressure on the worst of his self-inflicted bite wounds, he whined, an awful sound in the cave.

That brought Balin to his side, his eyes glistening wetly and his hands hovering just shy of actually touching Thorin, just as his brother had been.

“Oh, laddie,” he sighed and Thorin rolled his eyes to look up at him, which only made Balin sigh again. “I don’t know what’s crueler.”

Dís looked over at Balin and gave him a very small smile. “He’ll be alright,” she told him with all the confidence of the very young or the very desperate. “Dwalin said he’ll be alright.”

“I hope so, lass,” Balin said, taking his hand away and laying it in his lap. “I sincerely hope so.”

They stayed in that cave together until morning. No one came looking for them, a mark of how chaotic the camp still was - or a mark of how little faith their kin had in Thorin’s ability to pull through this tragedy.

When dawn made the first attempts to climb over the horizon, Thorin woke from the deep slumber he had managed to fall into some hours after they arrived, after he exchanged Dís’s lap for Dwalin’s and his sister curled up against Balin’s side to sleep. He jerked and rose on awkward, untrained limbs away from them all and Dwalin startled back into consciousness, rubbing his eyes. Balin woke too and as shudder after shudder wracked Thorin’s body, he tucked Dís’s head into his chest and shielded her eyes so she did not have to see.

The transformation from wolf to dwarf did not seem as horrible as the transformation from dwarf to wolf or perhaps it was the remnants of sleep clouding Dwalin’s perception. Thorin was himself again, naked on the floor, breathing and shaking. Dwalin reached him before the others and lay a tentative hand against his shoulders. Not a moment later he was sprawled on his back, Thorin’s arms were around him and his friend’s face was pressed into his neck; he was sobbing horribly, taking in great gulps of air, choking on them.

Dwalin held him back, hard as he dared. He wanted to say _something_ of comfort, but all he could manage to do was whisper, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again. He did not even know what he was apologizing for.

There was pain along his back, awful biting pain, but Dwalin ignored it. Later, when Thorin’s heartbroken sobs died down into breathless tears, he realized that Thorin’s fingernails, hard and sharp, had tore bloody holes in the back of his tunic and embedded themselves in his flesh. Thank the Maker above that Thorin didn’t see; by the time he’d finished his crying spell, it was clear that he was so exhausted he could hardly keep his eyes open.

This time, the changes that bite had wrought were not so easily dismissed. The fingernails that pierced Dwalin’s shirt and skin were indeed darker and sharper than they had been, hard as steel. And his nose was slightly wider, but a break on the battlefield that went unset could explain that. Thorin’s teeth were sharper as well, slightly longer - “but no one will see if he doesn’t smile,” Balin muttered, coming up beside his prince with Dís still flush against his side.

His hair was thicker as well, but he was a dwarf, no one would notice that. The ears, though...Dwalin heard Thorin joke about them enough. Round, prominent, he and Dís shared them, a legacy from his grandfather that Frerin had not inherited. Only now they had changed shape, large as ever, but...different. Almost pointed.

“If he keeps his hair mostly unbound, it’s easy to miss,” Balin concluded quietly, eyes lingering on Thorin’s hands. “Careful tending. And gloves, I think. Which...would be for the best. Rings, you know.”

Dwalin gulped and nodded, taking a deep breath in and releasing it. They’d made it ‘til dawn. Now to go on until the next day. His father’s mantra in the days following the dragon’s attack. Just make it to dawn. Then nightfall. Then dawn again.

Dwalin took his shirt off and put it on Thorin instead. His limbs were like lead and as Dwalin hoisted him into his arms, he thought he felt heavier than usual; little matter, Dwalin was strong enough to carry him. Thorin’s head lolled against Dwalin’s arm and he breathed deeply, relaxing against him. Together, the four of them emerged into the pale light of dawn and trudged silently into camp.

No one was up and about yet, it was still too early to stoke the cooking fires. Only one dwarf among their number flew to them as they emerged into the clearing, her golden hair, unbound, streaming behind her as she ran.

“Oh, you…” Freya began, but stopped short of reaching them when she saw her son in Dwalin’s arms. “Oh, please, _please - ”_

“He’s alright, Ama,” Dís reassured, her breaking away from Balin to take her mother’s hand. “He was fine, really, just...different, for a while. But still Thorin all the time.”

Freya came forward, her hands sliding over Thorin’s motionless form, tracing the line of his brow, the new shape of his straight nose, caressing his cheek. The wounds he had given himself the night before had vanished. In the early morning light, Dwalin could not even seen any scars across his face.

“Oh, I could just _murder_ all of you,” she said unexpectedly, her voice a strangled whisper. “Disappearing! I knew where you must have gone, you _foolish_ children - ”

“Ama,” Thorin mumbled, flinching a little.

“Hush,” she said, touching his hand lightly. Dwalin had no idea if she noticed the claws or not and had no desire to ask. “Hush, darling. To bed with you - _all_ of you.”

She hurried them into the tent she had taken to sharing with her daughter, larger than the one Thorin slept in alone, not big enough for the four of them, but they remained there anyway, together, huddled around Thorin who was so still and pale beneath the blankets and furs that only the steady rise and fall of his chest convinced them he still lived.

“No one else can know of this,” Balin said suddenly - _stupidly_ Dwalin thought, half asleep again. Of course no one could know. They were Thorin’s closest friends and kin and even _they_ reacted with fear at first.

Balin was ready to strike him down, Freya had given him up for dead when the moon rose and Dwalin nearly wet himself for fear when Thorin had done nothing more threatening than fall at his feet. Only Dís, brave little Dís, never doubted that her brother would remain and now she lay curled up at his side, one thin arm draped over his broad chest, as if she could shield him from harm.

If someone else did not know who he was - or worse, if they _did_ and loathed him already, even before they knew of his burden - he would not last a fortnight.

“Keeping a secret of this kind will require care,” Balin went on. “And dishonestly. A great deal of dishonesty. And silence above all.”

“Silence, aye,” Dwalin yawned. “So shut up about it, why don’t you?”

Balin was either too tired or too worried to be annoyed. He didn’t even take a swipe at his brother. Dís and Dwalin fell into slumber beside Thorin, but Balin sat up a bit, looking worriedly down at the three of them, rapidly calculating the risks already running through his mind.

If they settled somewhere with regular rooms...or outbuildings, somewhere where there was a guarantee of privacy, that would be for the best. As for who knew, the four of them were a given, and Freya, as well as Óin and Gróin and if they knew Maeva knew and probably Glóin...but they all thought the world of Thorin. They were his closest kin and loyal, firm-hearted dwarves. They would seek to protect him as well as any could hope to. It was all the rest of the world they had to worry about.

Balin let his head fall into his hand in despair. It would have been easier - no less heartbreaking, but _easier_ if he had been a slavering monster after all. Then Thorin Oakenshield would have died of his wounds sustained in battle, a hero like his brother and his grandfather. The life left for him, the life that Balin could see for him was only half a life. Half shadows and secrecy and pain, month after month, year after year.

Thráin’s grief had driven him to madness in an hour. How long would Thorin survive?

As long as he can, Balin thought abruptly, startling himself with the ferocity of the notion. And as long as there was life and breath in him, he’d do what he could to ensure the fate of the kingdom - and that of Thorin’s life.

That, he realized as he drifted off into a light sleep beside his brother and his cousins, most of all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumping forward a few years, we find ourselves in the Ered Luin - I'd say this story is set maybe 2/3 years before _Durin's Day Eve_ just to use my own fics as a timeline.
> 
>  **Warning:** For **self-loathing** and **suicidal thoughts.**

The battle at the gates of Moria had changed Prince Thorin. All bore scars from that awful day, some seen, some unseen, but he who the people called Oakenshield seemed altered in some manner that none could see.

Most thought it was some hidden injury from the battle that caused him trouble now and again, that caused him to emerge from his home after days of confinement pale, his hands shaking ever so slightly when he hefted his hammer. Some did not attribute the prince’s frequent weaknesses to any physical cause, but rather a wound taken to the heart, having lost his king, his father and his brother all in one day. Those unseen injuries could have far longer-lasting effects than the deepest cut of orcish blades.

Some few confided among one another thoughts that they dared not breathe aloud among any of the royal family: That their king was mad. What other explanation could there be for his isolation, his brief address to his subjects he passed on the streets? Never unkind, but there was a coldness in him that even his father Thráin, famously reticent, had never exhibited. He took little company beyond his own kin and his life seemed to be lived by rote - from the door of his family’s apartment, to the floor of his forge, back to the apartment again. Rarely was he seen socializing in the pub or the marketplace. Rarer still was he seen to smile.

Mad, they thought. But quietly so. And well looked-after if the frequency of his royal cousins’ comings and goings from his rooms was any indication of the state of his care. Really, they said, it was the young princess they most worried for. Trapped with kin such as that was too much for any young girl to bear. Dís was seen amongst the general populace with far greater frequency that her brother, but she too kept others at arm’s length. She might accept invitations to dine or dance, or visit, but she never let anyone into her home, save for her closest family.

It was a shame, everyone agreed. A sore shame that the brother’s infirmity, whatever it was, should fall so heavily upon his sister. There were nights that passed when, despite the begging and cajoling of her friends, she insisted that she could not go out. “Thorin needs me back in our rooms,” was all she said, but they never seemed to be in.

When, once or twice, her Blue Mountain friends had come calling on those evenings when Dís cordially, but firmly refused and they dropped by with a little something from the pantry, attempting to be neighborly, they found the doors locked and the shutters closed. If a fire or lamp burned inside, they could not see one and no matter how long they knocked or called for herself or Thorin, neither of them ever answered the door.

None of these suspicions, either of illness, sorrow, or madness, were ever confirmed by any who truly knew the prince’s secret. For the truth was more terrible and more dangerous than any rumors that traveled through the Ered Luin ever could be.

Dís knew they meant well. She always thanked Víli or Thyra or Bofur, any friend who offered their assistance with vague allusions to Bifur’s occasional unwellness. Thorin was altogether more suspicious, though he warmed to their well-meaning offers when he concluded that they thought him infirm or mad.

“They don’t think you’re mad,” Dís said one night, close to Durin’s Day Eve when all the village could be counted on to pack into the pubs, beginning the celebrations a few days early. It was touch and go whether or not Thorin would be able to attend the bonfires at all; he was always out of sorts for a day or two following his ordeal and Durin’s Day was coming right on the heels of the full moon. “They think you’ve got some wound that flares up now and then and are ass-stubborn about tending it, that’s all.”

Thorin harumphed from his armchair in front of the fire. Brooding into the flames could hardly be considered a useful way of spending one’s time, but Dís was grateful he was sitting; usually he was jittery and unable to keep himself still for ten seconds together. Which did not ease his exhaustion in the aftermath, but she was going to keep that opinion to herself. After ten years of witnessing and nursing him through the manifestations of his curse, she could not claim to understand what it was like for him in the least bit.

“Here,” she said, handing him a square bundle, wrapped in fine-woven cloth. The twitching of his nose indicated that Thorin knew what it was without being told, probably had known since she walked in the door, but Dís told him anyway. “Thyra offered us a bit of sausage bread from the day’s stock, I said we’d be happy to have it.”

Thorin swallowed, his mouth already watering, but he didn’t make a move to take it. “I don’t want you taking charity.”

“It wasn’t charity,” Dís replied patiently. “It was leftover from the day’s baking, I told you, we’re doing them a kindness, it would just be thrown out otherwise.”

“There are half a dozen children in her parents’ household who would have been happy to have it.”

“Could be - or could be there are half a dozen children in the house who eat it nearly every day and want a change,” she countered, still holding the bundle out to him. “And, more to the point, half a dozen children whose parents could make it for them whenever they asked whereas we’re neither of us Made for cookery and thus would appreciate the skill that went into its crafting more.”

Thorin’s eyes flickered down to the offered loaf, but he didn’t move to take it. “Have you had some?” he asked.

“A bit,” Dís nodded and it was true, she had sampled a piece, but saved the lion’s share for her brother, “but you can have the rest.”

“I can wait ‘til supper.”

“I know you can,” she replied. “But if you want it, you can have the rest.”

Thorin was going to take the food, she knew he was going to take it, knew this entire exchange was pretense. She _wanted_ him to take it, he needed it. It was always worse for him if he hadn’t eaten enough in the days leading up to the full moon - not that there was a quantity of food that qualified, he was always hungry around this time and when he came back to himself, no matter how exhausted he was, eating was the first thing on his mind.

When there wasn’t enough to satisfy, the transformation wore him down to muscle, bone and flesh. It hollowed his cheeks and left his hands shaking. Too often there wasn’t enough and despite his protests, Dís knew Thorin was unspeakably grateful for Thyra’s kindness. Even if he never said. Even if he did little more than nod and grunt at her when she bade him good morrow, Dís knew.

There was a little buzz of irritation every time they engaged in one of these little tete-a-tetes when Dís knew full well how it would end, but she understood that her brother needed the reassurance. Thorin just liked to prove to himself that he could resist pouncing on any little scrap that was offered to him; that he was not an animal, that he had self control enough to refuse once, twice, three times, until his sister insisted.

Now he hesitated once more, looked into her eyes and seemed to find something there that promised him it would truly be alright if he took what he wanted. Only then did he accept the bread with a quietly voiced, “Thank you.”

“Thank Thyra,” Dís said, turning away to poke at the logs in the fire. “She made it, I just carried it.”

Only when she’d turned her back on him did he removed the thick leather gloves that were an almost constant presence to eat. The sight of her brother’s hands did not trouble Dís any more than seeing the scars of the battle might have done, but she knew Thorin preferred to keep them out of sight.

The gloves were the first of many obfuscations, veils and lies that slowly and steadily built a wall between Thorin and his people. That first morning after the agonizing night they spent in a little rock pile on the outskirts of Dimrill Dale, Balin brought Thorin something to eat and a pair of his own gloves to keep his hands out of sight. Thorin tried to keep the the thick claws, as he thought of them, filed down and harmless, but a keen eye would see that something was not quite right about the king-in-exile’s hands.

Dís pretended to be asleep when Thorin woke and realized that he’d done Dwalin a harm with him. Dwalin, stubborn, stout-hearted, wonderful Dwalin, wouldn’t hear Thorin’s horrified self-recriminations, saying only that it wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t realized, and it wasn’t as though Dwalin himself was made of cotton fluff and tin. Thorin stop speaking then, probably because he wouldn’t stop cursing himself. When Balin brought the gloves, he put them on immediately and it was days before he voluntarily touched any of them.

Every once in a while, Dís would quietly tell her brother that he didn’t have to cover himself around the house. She didn’t mind. Truly.

He could never quite meet her eyes when he made his reply. _It’s not just for your sakes that I wear them._

Though he lost no skill in the forge and could wield axe and sword as well as he ever could, Thorin could not look at his hands and see anything but the paws of a beast. His could not look at his hands and see a craftman’s tools anymore. All Thorin saw were the savage claws of the monsters of Moria, the crude weapons that killed so many fathers, sons, and brothers and he hated them.

Thorin liked the look of his face only slightly more than his hands and probably because he did not have to look at himself very often. The only looking glass in the house was a small handmirror kept in Dís’s bedroom and he made use of it as rarely as possible. The permanent changes wrought upon his body never stopped horrifying him. It took him weeks to learn to temper his strength so that he did not run the risk of breaking or bending everything he touched. He learned to delay his reactions to sounds and scents he ought never have noticed, not looking up until he was addressed, though he could pick out the smell of a friend or acquaintance out of a crowd. Tolerating crowds was a major victory in itself; when they first arrived in the Blue Mountains, the bustling marketplace was too much, Thorin could not stand in the place above five minutes before becoming completely overwhelmed. He got better as time went on, but he prefered the relative comfort and quiet of his own room to anyplace else in the world.

Yet isolation, when there were hundreds still who looked to him to lead and care for them was never an option for long. Thorin did his best by them, he learned to keep his answers short, curt without being rude, that his sharp teeth might go unnoticed. He rarely smiled and only laughed behind closed doors where his closest kin could be counted on not to flinch away. Perversely his coldness was perceived as a sign of strength. People respected him all the more for being unapproachable and Thorin, forgive him, took advantage of their respect.

That was what he told himself every time he brokered a new settlement agreement or argued a desperate pauper out of debtor's prison. It was for the good of his people that he let others shake his gloved hands and bow low before him. Why he let them call him king despite the fact that he was the lowest sort of creature that had ever existed; cursed, corrupted, monstrous.

When the burden of secret-keeping became too much to bear, he retreated to his bed. Beneath furs and blankets he tried to block out the world for as long as he could, the world that demanded so much of him. He closed his eyes and tried to forget what he was, where he was. To dissociate, mind from body from soul. Not to sleep, sleep was no help. In sleep he relived the battle again or, worse, dreamed of horrors not yet come to pass. Dreamed of the monthly rending of his flesh and blood. Dreamed of bringing the same death and devastation to his people that had been visited upon them once before, this time by his own fangs and claws. On those awful nights he would wake himself with a roar and the taste of blood on his tongue. Those nights he would lie awake, shaking, and he would not open his bedroom door, no matter how much Dís pounded on it and begged or cried.

As she doled out portions of hearty barley soup and bread for them, giving him more, he felt his heart swell with love and break for her at the same time. She deserved so much better, his best lass, yet she stubbornly stayed by him, day after day, year after year.

Their mother had not and her absence was a strong reminder every day to Thorin that he did not need to use his claws and fangs to be a killer.

“Your friends aren’t out in the village tonight?” he asked when he sat down to supper, unable to deny that he was still hungry even after consuming most of a loaf of bread. The gloves had gone back on the moment he was finished.

“They are,” Dís nodded, stirring her spoon in her bowl. “More fools them, it’s always forge-hot when the pubs are packed, nevermind that Bildr has us pull our own pints on busy nights and charges full price for the grog. I’ll join them for a lark once the holiday’s past.”

There was nothing in her tone that indicated she spoke anything other than the truth, but Thorin knew that she wouldn’t mind overcrowded pubs if going out for the evening didn’t mean leaving him behind.

The only soul in the Blue Mountains that Thorin could honestly say he had forged anything like a friendship with was Bifur, a cousin of the three miners Dís was so fond of. Bifur, who had suffered a terrible injury in the battle that left him unable to speak the Common Tongue, a wound that flared up and left him mute or confused or in terrible pain for days at a time. When Thorin heard Bifur was unwell, though he was not of his own Clan and they shared no ties of kinship between them, he would make a point to inquire after his health, even to visit, if he was feeling well enough for visitors.

Good Bifur who asked no questions of him that he would be unwilling to answer, who was neither cowed nor offended by his silences, and who bore no grudges. Bifur, who only once tried to return the favor when Thorin was not seen at the forge, but who went away at once and never mentioned it again when his knock at the door of the flat went unanswered.

Even as Thorin enjoyed Bifur’s company, he knew in the back of his mind that he was taking a risk, though no one chastised him for it. On the contrary, Dís seemed positively delighted the first time he mentioned visiting on a matter that was not business and Dwalin was more than happy to accompany them to the alehouse or racetrack, only Balin expressed reservations, but he never counseled Thorin against seeking Bifur’s company. He only said, “Be careful.”

Thorin hardly needed reminding. The entirety of his life consisted of risk, taking care, hiding. It was second nature to him.

Dís had a second helping of supper, but sat at the table while Thorin had a third, recounting a story that Bofur told her about an altercation that he’d been involved in - through no fault of his own and he had _no_ idea how those canaries found their way into the foreman’s best boots though why the foreman should have taken his finest togs in to work was a matter that bore thinking on - which made him crack a smile, then laugh out loud.

She was laughing too, but paused in the telling and stared at his mouth. Immediately, Thorin sealed his lips together, self-conscious, but she only gestured to her own teeth and said, “You’ve got a bit of greenery stuck, makes you look like you came off the worse in a fight.”

Thorin found the stray piece of parsley with his tongue, but though Dís picked right up where she’d left off, he didn’t laugh again.

Before she went to bed, she went round to Thorin’s side of the table and held him for a long while, resting her head on his shoulders. Patting her arm awkwardly, he mumbled, “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know, I want to, now be quiet,” Dís said, giving him a tighter squeeze. She pulled back far enough to kiss his right cheek, then his left and the tip of his nose for good measure before she straightened up and went to her room. “‘Night, brother. Sweet dreams.”

Before Thorin went to bed, he cleaned up the remains of their supper, then pushed the kitchen table and chairs against the far wall. The armchairs got the same treatment on the opposite side of the room and the rugs were rolled and neatly stacked beneath the chairs, in preparation for what was to come.

Thorin sighed a passed a hand over his face when he looked at the stones on the floor. They were scratched and scored and he had only his position, degraded though it was from what it ought to have been, but being called ‘king’ was enough to keep the landlord from coming in uninvited to check on his property. Otherwise he was certain they’d be sued for damages and it was a financial burden they could ill afford, not with him eating them out of house and home every month.

Dís, his practical little sister, shrugged whenever he mentioned them and said there was nothing to be done, unless they commissioned sturdy little socks for him. She’d found the notion so funny that she threatened to do it anyway, just for her own amusement. Thorin smiled at the time, but now he felt the shroud-like oppression of melancholy when he recalled that conversation. For there was something else to be done about it. Something that would absolutely break his sister’s heart which was why Thorin never mentioned it, though the idea was one he grappled with regularly.

What was better, he wondered, a monster king or a dead king? What would his people prefer?

Dís, Dwalin, Balin and the rest who knew of his curse harbored an affection for him that went deeper than loyalty to a lost throne or a title he bore no claim to anymore. He knew what they would say, if he put the question to them. But love could cloud even Balin’s keen-eyed judgment and he had to wonder if, in letting him live that first night and all the nights since, the merciful decision, the decision made with love, had been the right one.

* * *

As it was a day of the week in which all good dwarves were meant to be working, Thorin was unsurprised to find Nori, Irpa’s son, lingering around the stall counter. Long gone were the days when the ne’er-do-well claimed he’d been sent to the shop on an errand for his mother or brother. He did not bother making any effort to explain himself as doing anything other than dawdling as Thorin elbowed him aside to climb a ladder and fix one of the hinges that held the awning in place.

“Unless you want to contract with me as an apprentice,” Thorin growled at him, squinting in the light of the sun overhead, “clear off.”

“Was that an order?” Nori asked, craning his neck back up to look at him, eyes shielded from the glare.

“If you like,” Thorin replied without looking back down. He felt his belt and frowned; surely he’d brought a hammer with him.

The head of the hammer bumped up against his knee. Thorin’s eyes followed the line of the tool down a wooden shaft to a skinny arm to an upturned face which boasted a knowing smirk of triumph.

“There, I’ve been helpful,” Nori declared. “May I stay?”

“You do a full day’s work, you stay for a full day,” Dwalin interjected, coming forward to steady the awning while Thorin hammered the metal back into submission.

Nori’s expression turned contemplative. “Well, how much of the day was that worth?”

Dwalin didn’t hesitate, “Two minutes.”

“Very well,” Nori said, leaning against the stall counter with his head pillowed on his arms. “Give me two minutes, then I’ll do something to buy myself another two.”

“If you don’t like weaving, you might as well tell Dori,” Dís said from further back in the shop. They had this exchange at least twice a week and she spoke the words dully for they were well rehearsed. “Save you both a little trouble.”

Nori just rolled onto his back, head lolling against the board, eyes rolling up to look at Dís. Then, without warning he straightened up and bolted over the counter, nearly kicking Dwalin in the chest and earning himself a swipe that would likely have resulted in a concussion had Thorin not shouted down to Dwalin to keep the damn thing in place while he worked.

Like the little brat that he was, Nori draped himself over Dís who only shifted a little to move him out of the way of the anvil, but otherwise let him hang off her.

“And break Dori’s heart?” he asked, aghast. “Namad! I’m surprised at you! I thought you had more kindness in you than that - do you want to see a grown dwarf cry?”

“Better crying than shouting,” Dís replied. “Which he’ll be doing right in our ears if you stay here. Pity you couldn’t get it in your head to trouble someone else sometime, but I know they won’t have you down the mines.”

“It’s stuffy,” Nori sniffed disdainfully, drawing back with his hands now stuffed in his pockets. Nodding toward her work, he asked hopefully, “Want me to hold that anvil steady for you?”

“Nori,” Thorin was down off the ladder and towered over him, arms crossed over his broad chest, eyebrows drawn together in a menacing manner. “Get. Out.”

For a moment - just a moment - Nori lost his devil-may-care manner and looked slightly wary. The careless smile was back a second later, but he held his hands before him and backed up toward the door. “Alright, alright. Inhospitable, you lot, can’t even give a fellow a place to hang his hat for ten minutes together…”

If Dís had been the one to go to the bakery for their noon meal and not Dwalin, or if she accepted her friends’ open invitation to drinks after work instead of spending the evening with her brother, she would have done some shouting of her own at Nori and the night would have proceeded as usual. As it was, she did neither of those things and so set the stage for what was to come.

Víli stopped by his room in Irpa’s house to change his clothes before heading out to start the night. He ruffled Nori’s hair when he passed by, but paused when a glint of copper on the floor caught his eye.

“Come into a bit o’coin?” he asked, pausing and crouching down on the floor to look at the money scattered about. “You ought to join us tonight - ”  
If Nori had nodded, even if he declined the invitation to go out, Víli would not have paused. But Nori sat bolt upright on the floor and stammered, “Er...no. No. No, it’s...what coins?” as he scrambled to gather them all up and stuff them into a familiar leather purse.

When Víli first came to them after hearing that Irpa had a room to rent, Nori hadn’t liked him, not one bit. He smiled all the time and laughed too much and spoke like a fool and practically charmed the beard off his mother’s face. Not to be trusted, that’s what Nori thought. Then, slowly, over weeks of being good-morninged at breakfast and good-eveninged at supper, after having his braids ruined a hundred times because Víli set his broad hands to tousling them every time he passed by, after being asked about his day and being listened to when he talked he came to the conclusion that, despite himself, he truly liked their lodger.

It was a novel feelings since Nori did not make new friends easily. It was also highly irritating since, once Nori admitted that he liked Víli, he next had to accept that meant he cared what Víli thought of him. Which gave Víli power over him, a power he usually wielded in fruitless attempts to make Nori into a halfway decent sort of being.

“Nori!” Víli shouted, shoving his shoulder and sending him sprawling. “I’ve half a mind to turn you up by your ankles and give you a shake t’see what falls out! That’s Dís’s purse, don’t you be telling me you you thieved it off her!”

“Well, she didn’t give it to me,” Nori grumbled, trying to go back to gathering up the coins, but Víli battered his hands away and insisted on doing it himself. “And I think thieving’s overstating the matter - I was going to give it back, I’d have given it over if Thorin hadn’t thrown me out the door! I’m just...borrowing it. I wanted to see if I could do it without getting caught.”

“Durin’s _beard_ , of all the - You march your arse over there and you tell her what you’ve done,” Víli ordered him, purse clutched tightly in his hand. “And then you beg her to forgive you. Go on, get up, I’ll go with you.”

“Well, there’s no point now,” Nori said, folding his arms while still sitting on the floor as obstinate as could be. “Moon’s full, they don’t leave the house when the moon’s full.”

“What?” Víli asked, certain that the lad was just making excuses. Where was Irpa when he needed her? Then again, she was so soft with her youngest Víli wouldn’t put it past her to go off and buy an identical moneybag to give to Dís, just so Nori wouldn’t be inconvenienced. “That’s nonsense, o’course they do.”

“They don’t!” he cried. “I’ve noticed, every time the moon’s out you won’t see hide nor hair of ‘em. I’m not walking in there when they’re lighting candles for the dead or whatever it is they get up to.”

Víli considered the theory, but it still didn’t seem quite right to him. Despite their reverence for the burned dwarves of Moria, he’d never known Dís and her kin to be particularly observant above and beyond the usual oblations they all participated in. There were nights when they kept themselves to themselves, but it was all to do with Thorin’s injury, Víli was quite sure. No, there was nothing else to be done for it; Nori was just making excuses.

“Nonsense,” he replied firmly, at the end of his patience. “We won’t be above two minutes, now on your feet.”

But though Víli boasted the greater strength, Nori was quicker and slippery as an eel. He dodged the arm that meant to grasp him and bolted from the room and out the door that Víli neglected to lock on his way him.

He’d never catch him, even if he ran after him at full speed, shouting his name - and, honestly, the neighbors got enough of that from Dori. Víli sat down on his haunches and frowned at the moneybag, wishing he _had_ turned the little scamp over. No telling if he’d kept any and although, in his heart of hearts, he truly believed Nori to be a good lad, he didn’t think for a second that he was an honest one.

 _He_ , on the other hand, was honest to a fault. So honest that sitting on the floor with Dís’s purse in his hand was making him so nervy that he made up his mind to return it at once whether Nori came with him or not. Besides, he was rather put out about not seeing her; having an excuse to pay a call wasn’t something he was willing to let go in favor of returning it to her at the forge on the morrow.

It was only after Víli set out toward the artisans’ apartments that he realized he wasn’t entirely sure where she lived. He knew it was in aboveground rooms with windows facing the east for the sun shined on her face every morning and woke her, she complained about the light all the time. But not very far aboveground because she said she had to break in through her bedroom window once when she and her family were newly arrived, both she and Thorin ran out of the flat without their keys and had a very embarrassing exchange when she was caught taking the shutters off, by the neighbors.

Yet she never said where, precisely, they made their home. He was never invited in. When their mother was alive, he understood, she was a cold, remote sort of person, unneighborly, really. But she’d been a Queen in the East and Víli understood why she mightn’t take a shine to the likes of him. Even after she died, he thought once Dís and Thorin were finished being shut up in mourning they might open the house up to a bit of friendly gathering. Not once did they, not once in ten years.

A very large hint came in the form of Dwalin who entered the stone dwelling-place that Víli surmised was the likeliest spot, getting further away as he strode off on those long legs of his.

Víli jogged along to catch up with him, breaking into an out and out run when Dwalin opened the door and seemed about to go in without knocking. Kin, sure, but to have a _key_ whilst he himself had never even stood upon the threshold seemed a little much; he and Dís were friends, weren’t they? Good friends, he thought, and respecting privacy was all well and good and very likely a noble thing as well - but it had been _ten years_ and he didn’t even know where she lived!

Víli got to the door just as Dwalin was closing it. He heard the unreasonably tall warrior mumble apologies for being late and he didn’t stop to think that he might actually be interrupting something important until he felt a sharp pain radiating up his arm as the door closed on his wrist.

There was a commotion inside, the sound of something breaking a - was that a _growl?_ Did they have some kind of animal in there? Dwarves did not keep animals, beyond those used for work or for slaughter and that was no raven or pony, the sound chilled Víli to the bone.

Speaking of bones, his arm was still trapped in the door and remained so as something else fell to the ground with a clatter. Chair or table, then he heard Dís shouting for her brother.

Then she yanked the door open, just wide enough for him to snatch his hand back as she glared down at him. Víli had never seen her look so angry...or so frightened.

“What are you _doing_ here?” Dís hissed. Víli tried to get a glimpse at whatever was happening behind her, but she was taller than he and blocked his view completely.

“Er…” Víli fumbled in his pockets, right hand half numb and throbbing. “Nori. Did something stupid, got your purse off you when you wasn’t looking. I brought it back, reckoned as you’d miss it, got it right here - ”

“Bring it round the shop tomorrow, goodnight,” Dís said firmly and tried to shut the door, but Víli stuck his foot in it.

“Nah, s’right here, won’t take half a moment - ”

“Víli go _away_ ,” her tone turned pleading and when Víli looked up into her face he saw she’d gone bone pale and there were actual tears in her eyes. “Please go away, _please_ \- ”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, growing alarmed in the face of Dís’s panic. “Is it Thorin? Is he having a...no reason t’be shamed of it, Bifur weren’t so well when he come back from battle, I seen - ”

“I don’t care _what_ you’ve seen!” she spoke over him urgently. “Just leave! By the Maker, if you don’t go, I swear I’ll never speak to you - ”

There was another crash and a _yowl_ this time, accompanied by the sound of Dwalin cursing. Dís turned around and let her guard down for an instant. That was when Víli saw it.

The creature stood taller than he did, with a bulk that put him more in the mind of a bear than a wolf, but it _was_ a wolf, that much was certain, from the mouth full of huge white teeth, to the thick black pelt, to the massive paws topped with deadly looking claws. Víli did not faint, to his credit, nor did he scream, but he did drop Dís’s purse and run down the corridor as though the beast was chasing him.

He didn’t make it to the end of the hall before Dwalin caught him and dragged him back, arms like steel bars around him. The monster was gone when he was thrown inside the sitting room, the door locked and bolted behind him. The place was a mess, the floor covered in scratches, the kitchen table in splinters. An armchair had been knocked over, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

Despite the absence of the terrifying beast, Víli did not feel any safer; Dwalin was glaring at him in a way that set his heart to pounding. The veins stood out starking in the warrior’s brawny arms and the miner backed up until he bumped against the wall, knees quivering a bit. He wasn’t bad in a pub fight, but he had no doubt that if Dwalin meant to do him a harm he surely would - but why would he be set on murdering Víli when there was a horrible monster about? And where was Thorin?

Unless...unless…

Víli’s knees gave up the suddenly monumental task of supporting him and he fell to the floor with a thump. He’d heard stories, tales from abroad the warriors brought back with them. Evil creatures on the battlefield, with the enemy’s cunning in the bodies of great mangy wolves. They were just rumors, most thought. Nightmares, dreamed up by brains half broken in the aftermath of Azanulbizar. It seemed a great cruelty, for the minds of those who’d suffered so much already to conjure up greater horrors in their sleep.

He never took them all that seriously. No more seriously than the stories he and Bofur heard when they were wee mites lingering around the stalls when the caravans came in, eager for tales of adventure and the sea. Now, with the memory of those teeth and claws fresh in his mind, Víli silently begged Bifur to forgive him for every time he winced at his feverish rambling about wolves and shapeshifters, gently telling him to calm down, that they weren’t real. It was only a dream.

“I told you to leave!” Dís broke him out of his dazed reverie with a strangled whisper. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she looked as bad as he felt. “Why didn’t you listen?”

“Wh-where’d it go?” Víli asked, eyes darting around the room. No sign of the beast now, but it had been right _there_ and Dwalin had willingly gone in, had he meant to kill it? Shouldn’t there have been blood? Why was Dwalin staring at Víli with murder in his eyes when there was a monster on the loose?  
“Never you mind,” Dwalin growled, crouching down before him. Víli didn’t find Dwalin as off-putting as some for all that he seemed hewn of granite, five or more feet tall. As he glared at Víli, anger tightening his shoulders and reddening his face, he began to see how the warrior had come by his reputation for being fearsome as an orc. “You’re to forget what you saw, do you hear me? _Forget it._ Or I’ll _make you_ forget. Do you understand?”

Víli eyed Dwalin’s broad, tattooed hands and gulped. No doubt all he’d need to do was set them on either side of his head and crush the memory out of him. He sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that...but the fact remained that a giant wolf, contained in three small rooms was not something that would just fly out of his head.

“Are you in danger?” he asked, trying to look over Dwalin’s shoulder to find Dís. All her anger was gone, she only looked terrified. “From - if that thing gets out - ”

“The only danger’ll be yours to bear if you run your mouth,” Dwalin snarled at him and Víli snapped his eyes back to the warrior’s furious countenance. “I’d make you sign your silence if I thought you could - ”

“I’ll do a blood oath!” Víli assured him quickly. Three drops on paper, more binding than anything rendered in pen and ink. “I swear! Anything! I amn’t even so sure what it is I seen an’ that’s the truth of it! I’m right sorry I didn’t pay you no mind, lass, it were wrong of me, an’ if you give me the say-so, you needn’t see me lurking about again. I promise.”

As he spoke, Víli was aware of a growing panic within him that had nothing to do with the threat of Dwalin’s hands or menacing wolf-creatures. To refuse all friendship to Dís, worse, to willingly renounce it because of his own folly seemed an awful fate to resign himself to, but so he spoke to appease them. To get out, just in case the creature found its way out of whatever place it had been hidden.

Dís’s eyes flickered to a doorway off the kitchen and she swallowed thickly. “Just let him leave, Dwalin, let him go. He’s honest, he won’t tell anyone.”

“You sure of that?” he asked, turning his head to look at Dís. It gave Víli the chance to bolt to the door, but he had no intention of doing so. Dís just said he was honest and it would do him no good to disprove her word by running out of the place. He’d wait until he was ordered out, do as he ought to have done from the beginning - no. What he ought to have done was stay away. What sort of dwarf barged in on another without an invitation, anyway? “Your honest lad here barrelling in - ”

“He was trying to do me a favor!” she shot back. “It’s not his fault! It’s not anyone’s fault, just let him go before you make it worse! Please!”

Dwalin listened to her pleading where Víli had not. With eyes that still burned he straightened up, hauling Víli toward the door with one strong arm. “If I hear you’ve breathed a word about this to anyone,” he threatened. “Or if I see you hanging around where you oughtn’t - ”

“I won’t, you won’t, I swear on me parents’ graves,” Víli said, raising a trembling hand to rest over his heart. “You won’t see me again, if that’s what you’re wanting. And I won’t say a word. I - I’m sorry for...for intruding.”

It was the last thing he said before Dwalin threw him into the corridor and slammed the door behind him. Dwalin stared at the stone for a long beat, breathing hard, as if he’d run a great distance. Dís ran for the door to Thorin’s room, but she found it hard to budge, though the handle turned easily in her hand.

“I’m going after him,” Dwalin said, wrenching the flat door open.

Dís stopped trying to get into her brother’s room and rounded on Dwalin with wide eyes. “Don’t!” she cried. “He said he wouldn’t tell, he’s not a liar - ”

“Can’t trust anyone,” he muttered. “No telling what he’ll do when he’s gone out of here - not to worry, lass, I won’t do your lad a harm if he doesn’t warrant it.”

“He’s not my - ” Dís choked her reply off with a little gasping sob, but true to form, she scrubbed her sleeve over her face before she could cry. Visibly gathering her composure she addressed her next comment to Dwalin’s boots. “Fine. Go look for him, but I’m telling you, he won’t say anything. He’s...he’s a good sort.”

Dwalin didn’t say anything in response, he only left her standing alone in the tiny room that suddenly felt cavernous. Dís turned her attention to the door again, trying the handle, but though she got it to turn again, the door didn’t want to move.

“Thorin, I’m sorry!” she called through the stone. She knew he could hear her, but was equally aware that he could not answer. “I won’t see him again - I won’t see any of them anymore if that’s what you want! I’m sorry, just let me in, would you? Please?”

But as ever when she begged him to open his door and let her in when he was suffering his worst hurts, he never let her come to him. Dwalin never returned that night and Dís sat with her back against stone, weeping silently into her knees until she fell asleep there.

She woke in her own bed, eyes aching and head pounding. She would have missed Thorin entire had he not jerked away the second he saw her eyes flutter open. Dís sat up all at once, reaching out for him. Her fingers caught rough wool and she realized with a jolt that Thorin was dressed for travel when by rights he ought to have been in bed recovering.

“Where are you going?” she asked, scrambling to her knees and catching his arm in both her hands.

Thorin hesitated and for a long, wretched moment she feared he was going to march out without a word, but though he was dressed, he was far from hale. He did not allow her to pull him to sitting on her bed as much as he fell on it.

“I think you know,” he said, his voice gruff and tight.

“No, no, please don’t,” she begged, clinging to him now, like a child. “I’m sorry, this is all my fault. Ama said, she warned me, if I hadn’t been careless, I know I shouldn’t have gotten close to them. I won’t see them anymore, I promise, please, just stay, don’t leave me alone, _please.”_

“Hush, hush,” Thorin said, taking her into his arms with all the care in the world, as if she was still the little dwarrowlass who clung to him on dark, cold nights when their home was lost. “It’s not your fault, it’s not, it’s mine. I’ve been a danger to you all this time. It wasn’t - it isn’t fair. To any of you, you shouldn’t give up on your own lives because mine’s been lost.”

“It hasn’t been!” Dís declared, pulling back to stare into Thorin’s eyes wildly. His hair was hanging around his head and she could see the few strands of silver imposing themselves here and there among the black. He looked like their father and like their father he seemed determined to leave them all. She wouldn’t have it this time. She wouldn’t. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

Thorin looked away, throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly. “This is no kind of life. For any of us.”

“But it’s ours,” Dís maintained, digging her fingers into Thorin’s shirt. “We’re together. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

Sighing, he rested his brow against his sister’s. When he spoke, his eyes were closed. “But you shouldn’t have to live like this, not even here. You should have friends. You should go where you please, with whom you please. You shouldn’t have to shut yourself up in these rooms and keep company with a monster.”

“I don’t,” Dís shook her head, but didn’t stop touching him. “I keep company with my brother. And I don’t do it because I _have_ to, I do it because I don’t want you to be alone. Because I love you. Please stay, please, I promise we’ll sort it out. Víli wouldn’t tell anyone. He gave his word and his word’s as good as any contract.”

If Dís was of a mind to paint delusions for herself, she’d believe that Thorin’s surrender came about because of the strength of her love, or the logic of her arguments. She might even believe that he remained for her sake alone. However, she was practical. She had always been practical and she knew when Thorin’s shoulders sagged and he agreed to lay himself down and rest for a bit, she knew it had little to do with her and everything to do with the fact that he was too exhausted to perform the task he’d set for himself.

Dwalin came in a quarter of an hour later, bearing food and news that Víli had taken himself straight home after he left. He shut himself up in his room in Irpa’s house and though a lamp burned into the wee hours, he never left, nor did he take any company.

“I left just before dawn,” Dwalin said, setting a kettle to boiling on the hearth. “I’ll go back out again to set the fire to burning in the forge; it’d look odd if none of us went to work.”

“I’ll go,” Dís volunteered, pocketing half a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese to take to the smithy with her. “Go on in and look after him and - and make sure he doesn’t try to leave.”

Her cousin did not seem nearly as surprised at the idea that Thorin might try to take himself away from all of them as Dís herself was. Or, perhaps, he simply did not take Thorin’s threats very seriously; after all, even if he was to leave the Blue Mountains, where would he go? Dís did not notice any familiar landmarks as she made her slow, plodding way to work, she was too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice much of anything.

It was one of the guiding rules by which she lived, _Thorin must never be alone._ Not because he was helpless, never that. It simply wasn’t good for him to spend too much time keeping his own company. He wouldn’t speak and his eyes would grow hollow and he’d sink deeper and deeper into an awful mire of unhappy thoughts and dark melancholy.

A tap on Dís’s shoulder made her jump and she grabbed the thing that poked her on instinct. Her fingers closed around the wooden handle of a miner’s mattock and Víli stood at the end of it, grinning sheepishly.

“Figured if I gave you a tap, you’d break me wrist,” he said, shifting from foot to foot with great unease.

“What are you doing here?” Dís hissed, using the handle of the mattock to pull Víli closer to her. “You said you’d keep away!”

“Aye, I know and I will if that’s your wish,” he reassured her earnestly. “Promise, but...I hope it’s not your wish. I just want to say, away from your kin - Dwalin’s a big ‘un, eh? Well. You knew that. Er. What I come to say is you got nothing t’fear from me, alright? I won’t tell a soul, not even _Bofur._ And you don’t ever got to say no more about it to me, I won’t forget, but I won’t never say nothing about it.”

Dís held his gaze and his mattock for a beat longer before she nodded once and dropped the tool. “Thank you,” she said shortly. “I...we appreciate it. Even if Thorin never says so, he does.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Víli said, shuddering at the memory of the beast he’d seen the night before. The he cleared his throat and added sotto voce, “He _is_ alright, eh? And you’re not in no danger?”

“Not from him,” Dís said shortly.

Víli nodded with immediate understanding. “‘Course, ‘course. As I said, no need to mention it again and I got to be going to work...but just so you know, if you need an ear to bend or…or anything...you know where t’find me.”

“Aye,” Dís replied. She managed a small smile and gestured at the rising sun. “Thank you again, sincerely. Off with you, you’ve come out of your way as it is.”

“Didn’t want to leave matters as they was last eve,” Víli explained, giving her shoulder a warm pat before he hefted his mattock and started down the lane. “Give your brother me best, eh? And tell Dwalin that he ought to have knocked on the door when he followed me, would’ve been a more comfortable stay if he kept watch in a chair.”

Startled, Dís laughed in spite of herself and nodded. She watched Víli until the back of his golden head disappeared around a corner, flooded with relief. It was more than the confirmation that Víli would not share Thorin’s curse with the world, if she was honest with herself she had to admit that his offer to let her bend his ear was a welcome one.

Treacherous, perhaps, but it would relieve some of the burden, to have another soul to share her life with, all of her life with. To speak things she was afraid to say to Thorin or Balin or even Dwalin, for fear they’d take it the wrong way. Dís was unsure whether she would ever take him up on his offer; there had been too many years of silence for her to shrug it off like an old coat. The fact that it was there was a gift in itself and she felt lighter in her heart as she made ready to work for the day, bracing herself against the flock of lies she’d let fly when inquiries were inevitably made about where Thorin was.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is HEAVILY influenced by a what-if scenario by **tum-tigger** on tumblr, so credit where credit's due. **Warnings-** For **violence to animals.** Wargs, but still.

If either Fíli or Kíli were pressed to describe their uncle briefly, the word they’d use would be ‘gentle.’

Thorin embraced them nearly as often as their mother did, but carefully, with arms that circled rather than squeezed. They’d never wriggled against him trying to get away from enthusiastic cuddles or merciless tickling the likes of which Mister Dwalin attacked them with when they were being bothersome. Their uncle did not press wet, loud kisses against their cheeks or on their noses, when he kissed them it was always done with a dry press of lips against their foreheads or hair.

Though he held them, fed them, put them to bed, lifted them on his shoulders and let them sit in his lap, he never roughhoused with them or disciplined them, not with hands applied to their bottoms or sharp thwaps up the backs of their heads. When their uncle was cross with them, he did not even shout, only spoke in a low, tight-lipped voice and told them to find their mother. That alone was usually enough to bring them to tears and voice immediate cries of repentance for the misdeed.

What Fíli and Kíli did not know for the first decades of their young lives was that their uncle’s tentative embraces and hesitant touches were a victory hard come by. When Fíli was newly born, his uncle refused to touch him.

Immediately after the birth he’d held him in stiff arms with gloved hands, as custom dictated. His heir and his sister’s only child, a _kinsman_ at last, hard won after so many years of loss, it would have been a cruel thing to refuse to acknowledge the child. With the scent of blood still clinging to her and her son, Dís bade Thorin sit beside her on the bed where she rested and she personally deposited the baby in her brother’s arms.

Fíli, sleeping, remained there about five seconds until he shifted and Thorin, fearful of holding too tight, of moving too suddenly, of _ruining_ the babe as he ruined everything, whispered, “Give him to his father,” and bolted from the room as soon as the child was safely taken back by his mother.

Víli knocked on his door later when Dís was up to her neck in visitors, kin and well-wishers. Thorin made a noise that might have been permission to enter or a plea to leave him alone, but Víli decided on the former interpretation and let himself in.

“Big day, eh?” he said, not asking before he sat himself on the bed beside Thorin. His face was flushed red with pride and happiness and Thorin was willing to wager he hadn’t stopped smiling since his son was born.

“Aye,” Thorin nodded, not looking at his brother-in-law. Clearing his throat, he spoke to the wall, “It won’t take me more than a day to pack my things. I’ll stay with Balin and Dwalin until I can find other lodgings. I would have taken care of it earlier, but...time got away from me.”

Víli looked shocked enough that you could have knocked him over with a feather, “I don’t reckon as his crying’ll be all that troublesome through stone, do you? Surely not! Erm. I know you’re a bit more gifted on that front than the rest of us, but I can nip down the shops and buy you a right bonny pair o’muffs to keep out the sound if you’d like.”

Thorin felt as shocked as Víli looked. “You can’t mean for me to stay,” he said, addressing Víli’s shoulder rather than his face now. “Not when you have a child.”

 _“‘Course_ I do! We does!” Unlike others, Víli never hesitated when it came to touching Thorin, he rarely asked for permission to do so or shied away when he thought an embrace might not be the best solution to a problem. Now he grasped Thorin’s shoulders and repeated, “‘Course you got to stay! I amn’t about to turn you from your own home! Little lad’s got to know his uncle, eh? And Dís! Oh, you’d be breaking her heart.”

Thorin shifted his shoulders and Víli let him go, but his hands did not fall to his sides, rather they hovered uncertainly in the air before finding their way into his hair. Thorin shook his head a little for surely his brother-in-law was being overgenerous in his predictions for how much Dís would suffer in his absence.

That night - that _awful_ night that still sent hot bolts of shame down his spine when he thought of it - when Víli happened upon them and _saw_ him, Thorin thought to flee. He thought to...well, he thought to do something far more final than simply walking away. But his sister pleaded with him not to go, not to leave her alone and for her sake he remained. But things had changed since then.

“She has a husband and a son now,” Thorin said, more to himself than to Víli, but sitting right next to him, Víli could hardly help overhearing.

“What, she’s only allowed two housemates?” Víli asked rhetorically. “That’s daft, Thorin and you damn well knows it! She said you’d try to pull this sort o’nonsense and I got no more patience for it than her! No, you’re going to live here along of us whether you likes it or no.”

A thousand things ran through Thorin’s line, a hundred caustic retorts, _You would order me?_ , a score or snarled accusations, _You would risk rearing an innocent babe alongside a monster?_ , and perhaps one cautious hope, _You mean for me to stay? Truly?_

“Your folk’re runners, eh?” Víli asked, quietly. His expression was as serious as Thorin had ever seen it. Moreso; never had his brother-in-law looked so grave. “I don’t mean...I know your Da run off on you both after the battle.”

“He…” Thorin began, but did not know how to conclude. Had Thráin not run? Run away, run mad, _run_ , aye, how he’d run. How they’d all learn to run. “Aye. He ran.”

Víli nodded, drumming his fingers restlessly atop his thighs where his hands found themselves after tangling in his hair. “Me Da never come back from the battle. Nor me brother.”  
  
Thorin looked at him finally, startled. “You had a brother?” he asked, racking his brain, trying to think of when Víli might have mentioned him. Surely he had, Víli, or Bofur, or Bombur, or Bifur, _someone_ would have mentioned a lost brother before now. They’d been living in the Ered Luin for ten years, even he had told a dozen tales of Frerin in that time. Thorin thought he was the most secretive dwarf in the West, but evidently he was mistaken.

“Aye,” Víli replied, more melancholy by the moment. “Kíli. Older’n me by...oh, going on forty years. He were almost grown by the time I come along, me Ma’s pride and joy. Not that I weren’t a diamond in her treasurehouse, but she knowed him longer. Good lad, strong, smart as a whip. Hero-worshipped him, I did.”

Again, Thorin cast his mind back through the years, farther now, to the last night before their day of reckoning. He did not like to think of that time, the last night he was wholly himself, but he did now. Had their been a pair of golden-haired miners, father and son whom he had seen? He must have heard them. If they were anything like Víli their laughter would have carried across the camps. But try as he might he could not conjure them up in his thoughts.

Víli continued, hesitantly, “When word got back ‘bout the...the slain, I thought for sure they made a mistake. ‘Cos they - ‘cos he couldn’t be gone. Weren’t ‘til Bifur come back alone that I knew. _Really_ knew and it hit me like a ton ‘o bricks. Not so bad as me Ma, but...t’were a wretched thing.”

“I’m sorry,” Thorin said and he was sincerely sorry. A warrior to the core, a loyal subject of his grandfather to the last, but in his heart of hearts, he wished he’d never seen the gates of Khazad-dum. Blasphemy, but then, he was a damned creature. “I’m so sorry.”

Drawing his sleeve over his face, Víli laughed hollowly, “Thank you. But what a rotten talk to have today of all days! There’s a reason I got on it, though...if you was to go - I think you know I don’t mean just to Balin and Dwalin’s lodgings - it’d _break_ your sister’s heart. Wound her to the soul. Bad as I felt ‘bout Kíli and me Da, she’d feel it ten times keener, mark me. So stay, please. For her sake, and yours.”

Truly moved, Thorin laid a hand over one of Víli’s and his brother-in-law took it, giving his fingers a squeeze. “But the child - ”

“Oh, he’ll love you better’n a fire loves the open air,” Víli said, he sounded so sure of himself that Thorin could almost believe it too. “You do good by your people. And your kin most of all. You got a good heart in that battered breast o’yours, eh?” He formed a loose fist and bumped his knuckles against Thorin’s chest. “You’d cut off your hand ‘fore you’d do them you love a harm. I don’t doubt that, not for an instant. Your sister don’t neither. And wee Fíli won’t have a cause in the world to fear you, I’m sure of it.”

Thorin was not so sure. Even as he stayed on - a trial period, he thought - he avoided handling Fíli. Víli was back to work in the mines and Thorin to the forge while Dís cared for him day in and day out. Víli was only too happy to pick his son up, hold him and kiss him while Thorin made excuses. He ought to get supper started or finished, he had tidying up to do, mending to finish, somewhere to be. Fíli, he was sure, was blissfully unaware of his existence for those early weeks.

He was certain that if he got too close to the little one, even if he did not hurt him, the innocent little creature would sense something dangerous was near and fall to weeping and shrieking. Then Dís would see that he could not stay, that it would be better for them all if he disappeared. The Mountain had in his sister-son, the promise of a true King. One unblemished, who could carry Durin’s line on as it deserved into the future.

Yet his sister was not so tired nor so slow that she failed to see what Thorin was doing. And she was stubborn enough not to allow it. On a night when Víli was working late, Dís met her brother when he arrived home and announced, “I’m going to bake some bread. Quite a lot of bread, in fact. I’ll be very busy. Fíli’s just been fed, he’s sleeping.”

Thorin was not quite sure why, but he felt like he was being led into a trap. Still, with the promise of a sleeping nephew, he did not find it necessary to invent an excuse to take himself out of the house. More fool him.

No sooner had Dís begun kneading the dough than a faint caterwauling started up from the next room. Thorin was conscious of it immediately, his head turned toward the sound only a half-second before his sister, but Dís did not look up from the bag of flour she was digging her hands in.

“Look in on him, would you?” she asked, without turning her head.

Thorin was about to demur, but he bit his tongue. Look in on him, she said. He couldn’t distress the child by looking at him, could he?

He rose from the kitchen table, laying his pipe down, the bowl still smoking faintly. Fíli was in his cot. One of his arms had escaped from his blanket and he was flailing it somewhat uselessly, his little face screwed up with tears.

“Is he dirty?” Dís called from the kitchen.

Thorin would have been sensible of that immediately, so he shook his head, then remembered to speak. “No. He’s just...crying.”

“Probably wants a cuddle.”

That seemed to be a reasonable assumption, so Thorin stepped back, expecting his sister to swoop in as she’d done since the babe was born, but she drove her hands into lumps of dough as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Dís?” Thorin asked, then gestured toward the child, as if his sister had forgotten he was within her chamber.

“Oh, I can’t,” Dís said with an apologetic smile. She raised her hands, covered in flour and dough explaining, “He’ll be filthy if I pick him up and he’s already had a wash. You go on. Sing him a song, bounce a bit, he’ll drop off again.”

“I don’t think I should,” Thorin said, a trifle agitated; the sound was murder on his ears.

“Of course you should,” Dís replied carelessly. “You’ve got a very fine singing voice. Go on. I told you I was going to be busy.”

Thorin looked between the crying child, to his admittedly busy sister and back to the child again. He flexed his hands within his gloves, then looked down on them to be absolutely sure that they were in fact on his hands. If he _cut_ the babe’s soft, thin flesh…

Just for a moment, he told himself, approaching the cradle with apprehension. Just a moment, just long enough for the child to react with fear and show Dís once and for all that he was not now a creature an innocent could love.

If there was a flicker in his heart of hope, he would never admit it to himself. Thorin did not _want_ to be regarded as a monster, no one ever would, but he did not like to indulge in the luxury of hope. It was one of many things he in his degraded circumstances could no longer afford.

Fíli was so small and so light, he hardly weighed anything at all. Like a feather wrapped in...knitting. It was a yellow knitted blanket, pale, like the thin hair atop the baby’s head. None of their kindred knew how to knit with such skill, it must have been a gift. From whom, Thorin could not recall. When Víli and Dís received gifts and callers on his Name Day, Thorin made himself scarce. Irpa, if he had to guess. Or Thyra’s mother, it might have been saved and handed down for the yarn did not seem new. He could not be offended at his nephew being given a second-hand gift, it seemed very soft.

Fíli’s brow was wrinkled and his mouth squirmed as he made sounds that were not wails, but nor did they sound happy. Thorin could hardly breathe, or move. Until Fíli swung his free arm back and knocked himself in the head with it.

Thorin shifted his grip on the blankets, just long enough to gently tuck Fíli’s arm back in amongst them so that he was wrapped as snugly as a sausage roll. Oddly, that seemed to put him more at ease and he stopped making distressed sounds altogether.

“There we are,” Thorin found himself saying, as if the child could understand him. “Nice and warm.”

The last time he’d held a child this small must have been Dís, when she was newly born. His mother bade him sit down to hold her and so he did now, perching on the end of the bed his sister shared with her husband. Fíli’s eyes were open now as they had not been in the moments following his birth. They were blue, Thorin saw. Like his and his sister’s. Like his brother’s.

Thorin swallowed hard and willed the memories back. How happy Frerin would have been to have a nephew. The rest of them wouldn’t have had a chance of taking Fíli in their arms, for he would have snatched him up every minute he could. Probably would have boasted that the wee thing was his very image. What a shame they hadn’t named him - or Named him - after his favorite uncle.

“He would have spoilt you to the core,” Thorin told Fíli. The baby blinked at him a few times. Then yawned, his whole face scrunching up as he did. Then he fell asleep.

“See?” Dís was grinning at him from the doorway, her hands still covered in flour. “You’ve got the perfect touch.”

Thorin doubted that was true, but after that first tentative step he stopped thinking of when he would move away from his sister and her family. It could be put off, he reasoned. For now.

But when Víli met his untimely end deep in a coal mine, he knew he could not go. Not then; not ever. It would break his sister’s heart.

* * *

Kíli was born in a rainy autumn that bled into a brutal winter. The frosts came early, killing Mannish crops and ill-supplying dwarven stomachs. Their kith and kin traveled south for work to scrape together coin enough to feed themselves. With two children under ten years of age, Dís could not leave the Ered Luin. Thorin could not leave for long in any case. In order to save money for food, she cut down on the budget for fuel and often they slept together on Thorin’s bed, for his room was windowless and Fíli and Kíli would be warm enough between them. All nights but one.

On a terribly cold night when the wind howled at the door and crept in through the chinks in the plaster around the windows that she barged into his room without knocking.

Thorin had not locked the door before he hid himself away. He hadn’t thought it necessary, for Dís he knew he did not want the children to see him in his cursed state. Yet there she stood, holding the children each one swaddled tightly in a blanket with a quilt over her own shoulders. Thorin tried to back away and almost growled at her, but he kept his mouth tightly shut for fear of frightening the children.

“They’re _freezing_ ,” Dís said shortly. “And they won’t remember anyway.”

There was a bedroll on the floor and Dís lay the boys down side by side, gesturing for Thorin to lay beside them impatiently. “Come along,” she said. “Let’s not be shy.”

If Thorin could have spoken, he would have accused her of running mad. How could she _think_ to lay her children down by the likes of him. Five years was time enough to grow accustomed to being around the little ones in his proper form, but like _this?_ It felt obscene and Thorin almost refused, but for the fact that Fíli was shivering and crying.

Kíli was still little enough to be tucked up against his mother, but Dís couldn’t hold the two of them all night and sleep herself. Thorin remembered those nights long ago, when he held Dís tightly in his arms and willed her to be warm enough until morning. He lay on her right, Frerin on her left; if it hadn’t been for the two of them, she might well have frozen to death early in their exile. The idea of the same fate befalling either of his nephews turned his blood to ice water.

Slowly, so slowly and carefully, Thorin lay down beside Fíli. The little lad could toddle and walk on unsteady legs, he had coordination enough to wriggle closer to him the moment he felt the presence of something large and warm settle beside him. There was no way of knowing whether Fíli recognized the beast beside him as a threat, something to be feared. He certainly did not act that way.

Dís followed her eldest son’s lead, shifting closer and covering the three boys with the quilt taken off her own bed. She pillowed her cheek on her arm and reached out, at first, Thorin thought, to embrace her sons, but she lay one of her hands atop his wicked paws. “Thank you,” she said earnestly. “You’ve been very good to us.”

 _You deserve all goodness,_ he wanted to say. _And I am nothing like._

Yet she still came with her children in tow, month after month, night after night. The years that stretched before them proved lean, the winters long and cold. Fíli was only babbling when Kíli was born, it was years before he could speak intelligibly. Dís was careful to bring them in only when they were on the cusp of sleep. Several times, Fíli would wake, tangle his fingers in Thorin’s thick fur or bury his face in it. Once, in the middle of the night, Fíli hoisted himself up, walked two steps forward and hugged the creature that was his uncle about the thick ruff of fur on his neck.

 _He isn’t afraid,_ Thorin knew with utter certainty in that moment. The realization brought only dread, no solace. _He ought to be._

But Fíli showed no sign of horror or fear. He kissed his uncle instead and Thorin would have pulled away if he didn’t think that would make the child lose his balance and fall. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps he should have bared his teeth and growled. Made him cry. Even if he had to miss more meals, Dís should take her children back to their own room and build up a fire. Better that than raise a child not to fear the things that might do him harm.

Thorin lay still during the onslaught of affection. He did not growl a warning and his teeth stayed hidden. When Fíli curled up beside him to sleep, he did not move away. He was determined to mention something to Dís, but the next morning, when he came out of his room and Fíli started for him as he always did, hugging him tightly about the legs, Thorin managed to forget.

He managed to forget until a day in early springtime when Fíli was playing with his toys on the hearth rug and Kíli lay on his tummy, watching him. Fíli picked up his little stuffed wolf pup and hugged it to his chest. He then pointed at his uncle across the room, preparing dinner and crowed, “Doose!” happily, all smiles even as his mother and Thorin exchanged panicked looks.

Goose was the name of his little wolf pup, a gift from Bifur for his first Name Day. When Bifur presented him with the creation of cloth and stuffing with dark blue buttons for eyes, Thorin must have looked queerly, for Bifur signed, _Protection. Loyalty. Strength. Keep him safe._

Thorin searched the toymaker’s face for any hint that there was a deeper meaning behind his words and his gift, but he found only cheer in the guileless expression. Nothing veiled. Nothing shadowed. Nothing that threatened. So Thorin thanked him and said he was sure his sister and his nephew would like it very much. He did not take the gift to bring to them; his hands were shaking too much.

It took them several rounds of repetition before they understood that Fíli chose to call the thing ‘Goose’ and though they’d asked him why and he babbled some kind of reply, they were not entirely certain why he thought that was the right kind of name for a little stuffed wolf. Dís chalked it up to a vivid imagination and let it be.

Now she rushed over and crouched down beside Fíli on the rug. “No, no, love,” she shook her head and picked up the toy. _“This_ is Goose. _That_ is Thorin. Uncle.”

Mutely, Fíli looked between his toy and his uncle, pointing first at one, then the other. Dís rapped the back of his fingers with her own, a chastisement. _“No,”_ she insisted, then pointed her own fingers at Thorin. “Uncle. They’re _nothing_ like. Nothing.”

Fíli curled his hand into a fist and clutched it to his chest, looking piteous for a second, but Dís did not kiss his fingers or smile at him. She stared at him hard, in a way that usually meant he was doing something he oughtn’t. Without a word, she plucked Goose up off the floor and hurried back to her room. Fíli cried and followed her as quickly as he could, while Kíli started wailing just because his brother was. By the time Fíli got to the door of his room, Dís locked the toy away in her dresser and turned back to him, empty-handed.

 _“Doose!”_ he cried, reaching his hand out and sobbing. _“Doose!”_

Dís picked him up and held him, but shook her head. “No,” she said firmly over his cries. “You can’t have him. Not right now.”

Nor were the boys granted access to their uncle during the full moon. Dís and Thorin did not say a word about it, but he locked his bedroom door the next night the curse was upon him and she did not try to enter. Fíli approached several times, pressing his little hands against the stone, but Dís led him back to his own room again and again. She did give him Goose back that night, for he would not go to sleep without him.

Within a few months’ time, Fíli stopped trying to reach his uncle and Kíli never seemed bothered about it either way. Over the years, they learned that they ought never try the handle or knock on their uncle’s bedroom door when it was closed.

* * *

The lads grew older, Fíli began attending lessons with Balin and some other of the village children whose parents could scrape coin enough together to pay for teaching; and a few more whose parents paid in craft or whose child’s aptitude, Balin reassured them, was payment enough for slate and chalk. Kíli tagged along, though he was still a little too young for letter-learning. He would lay on the floor beneath the benches with a sheaf of scratch paper and a bottle of ink, making pictures to be hung up in Balin’s rooms, or else for his mother and uncle. Or Mister Dwalin, who divided his time equally between the home he ostensibly shared with his brother or the rooms that Dís shared with her brother and sons where he could be found half as often at nights - and some mornings.

It was quite the reputation they’d developed for themselves in the Ered Luin. The Mad King and his sister, the Lady Whore.

 _Just wait ‘til he gets her with child,_ the gossips amongst them would stay, eyeing Dís’s middle for any tell-tale signs, when they stopped by the forge. _It’ll be the talk of the town and then we’ll see if the line of Durin hasn’t fallen entirely to base corruption._

“I ought to wring their necks,” Thorin growled over supper one evening, bending his spoon all out of shape by gripping it too hard. “Does that count as sedition?”

“As we’re not on Longbeard lands and they’re not threatening to have your head on account of your sister being a _slattern_ , I don’t think so.” Dís said the last in a whisper, tossing a look over her shoulder at Fíli and Kíli on the carpet, who were wrestling, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place in the kitchen.

Thorin hit her arm with the bowl of his spoon. “Don’t say such things. It’s none of their damned business in any case and you _aren’t_ \- ”

“Supper!” she announced to Fíli and Kíli who scrambled to take their places at the table. “I don’t mind a bit of gawking; drives business up.”

That effectively ended the conversation for the night. Thorin would never utter a word against her, nor even speak one. Bad enough she had a cursed brother to fret over. A widow of twenty years...why _shouldn’t_ she be allowed a little piece of happiness for herself and damn the wretches who thought otherwise.

Dwalin came in then, knocking on the door even as he opened it, stomping snow off his boots. Dís looked up and smiled to see him, which made Thorin feel a bit lighter in heart, despite it all.

“Bit of a storm brewing,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “And there’s talks of wargs scene in the forest all around.”

“Orcs?” Thorin asked immediately. Fíli and Kíli stopped eating their bread mid-chew and looked at their mother with worried faces. She gestured for them to keep eating, but she too looked up at Dwalin with apprehension in her gaze.

Dwalin shook his head. “Not as far as I’ve heard. Just their beasts, abandoned, it looks like. Skinny too, but vicious. They probably started turning on their own, but it’s only a matter of time before they come looking for better hunting.”

It would be the farmsteads in the valleys that surrounded the mountains that would be their target. Barns full of chicken, pigs, and goats, ready for the slaughter. But wargs were big beats and not so choosy in what they ate.

“Are they sending guards down to keep watch over the Men?” Thorin asked. There had been a summons to council for that evening, but he had to decline for reasons of poor health. Balin went in his stead.

Dwalin nodded, ladling himself a bowl of stew. Fíli and Kíli scrunched onto one chair so that Mister Dwalin could sit down and he gave each of their heads a pat before he started eating. “Aye, gone down this evening, but I’m staying behind. We’re hoping to head them off with spears and bows ‘fore they can reach the valley.”

“I got a bow if you want, Mister Dwalin,” Kíli offered, sneaking a carrot out of his bowl and into his brother’s. “No arrows though, Uncle said no ‘til I won’t stick meself.”

“Thanks, lad,” Dwalin smiled very briefly at him, but his expression grew stoney a moment later. “But we’re well-supplied with weapons at least.”

“And bodies?” Thorin asked.

Dwalin shrugged, “We’ll make do.”

Thorin sighed and rested his face in his hand, “I wish I could - ”

“I know,” Dwalin replied before his king could finish. “But wishing won’t make it so, don’t give yourself a beating over it.”

“I could go,” Dís said, speaking loudly before her brother or Dwalin could shout her down for the suggestion. “I’m handy with a bow.”

“The lads - ” Thorin said immediately, but she silenced him with a very pointed look.

“They won’t be by themselves,” she replied. “Lock the door, shutter the windows. They’re as safe here as they are anyplace else. And if your guards around the town have numbers enough to fend them off, the wargs won’t be a worry. If you’re short-handed, the whole place’ll be chaos. Overrun.”

Neither Thorin nor Dwalin could deny what she said was true, but Dwalin huffed, “I don’t like it,” just for show it seemed for they both armed themselves and girded themselves against injury as well as they could. Dusk turned to night, the children were locked in the house and Thorin was forced to shut himself in his room, though for the first time in ten years, that night he kept the door ajar.

Thorin could not rest. Like any dwarf, he hated idleness of any kind and idleness in the face of danger fretted him like nothing else. He could hear Fíli and Kíli moving about the house, playing quietly at first and speaking occasionally to one another, Kíli more often than Fíli. He asked his brother questions the other child could not answer. Thorin ground his claws into the floor and clamped his jaws together tightly to keep from making a sound in frustration that would frighten them.

How _useless_ he was! Dís dismissed him when he said such things. One night out of the month was not so many, she reasoned, but on a night such as _this_ he lamented his state more than any other. Worse than being cursed, worse than being unnatural, was being utterly without occupation, utterly unable to work, to give aid, to do _anything_ other than wait and fear.

Eventually, the boys put themselves to bed. All was quiet for several minutes together. Then Thorin heard howling, coming ever closer. Fear flooded Thorin and he found he could not breathe. He remembered those howls as clearly as if it was yesterday that he stood in the boiling hot sun, surrounded by slaughter.

The howling started again, louder this time. In their beds, one of the boys, Fíli or Kíli, he could not say who, started to whimper. And Thorin could stand by no longer.

It little mattered to him if he was seen. It little mattered to him if he was killed. His own life he’d given up as worthless thirty years ago, but those children? He would see himself struck down before he would see a hair on their heads harmed.

The sounds of wargs were so close, they might have been in the next room. The whimpering turned to tears, though neither of the boys left their room. Dís locked the door behind her, but it was a paltry safety; Thorin broke the lock and took it off its hinges. If he could break through it so easily, so could a desperate, hungry warg.

The children screamed at the sound of crashing stone, but their alarm was justified. The stone fortification at the mouth of their complex of apartments was nothing more than a pile of rubble, the guards either dead or fled, Thorin had no way of knowing. Two wargs, huge, but thin were prepared to make a feast of all within Their fur was matted and grey, filthy from the dirt of the forest and their eyes glowed a sickly yellow in the darkness.

Without thinking, Thorin charged after them. He was smaller, but stronger and in far better form than the two who met him at the door, teeth and claws bared. They had desperation on their side, it made them more vicious than was their wont for they did not fear bodily injury if it meant that they might eat when the fight was over.

Thorin held them off as best he could, though his mind was honed to fight with steel and iron, not tooth and claws. He loathed acting the part of an animal, but it was all he could do now, biting down hard on fur and flesh, feeling hot, polluted blood flood his mouth.

His skin felt torn to ribbons, but he fought on. He knew from experience that any wound taken in his wolfish form would be gone come morning, leaving only lingering pain and exhaustion in their wake. He could abide any injury to the point of death, he would do so gladly, if it meant keeping his nephews safe from harm.

Where once he’d driven claws only into dirt or stone, kept his hands concealed behind gloves, he now tore open wounds that wept hot blood onto the stone. Where he kept his mouth closed tight out of habit, neither speaking or smiling too much to conceal himself, he bit down hard, ripping flesh and rending bone and muscle and sinews. It was nothing like a battle, there was no honor in fighting like this, like a beast, but Thorin cared not for honor, his every thought and action was turned toward those children.

His strength and stamina won him out in the end. The longer they fought, the more blood was spilled, the more the beasts before him tired and slowed. They were less wargs in the end than piles of meat, fur, and black blood. It was such carnage as Thorin had not seen in thirty years, save for in his dreams. His stomach roiled and he closed his eyes, seeing not carcasses of the beasts scattered before him, but those of his kin and friends, torn open on the battlefield. Their staring dead eyes he remembered best of all; they seemed to stare at him in bitter accusation.

A sob behind him made him turn and he was jolted back from his miserably reverie by the sight of his nephews, standing in the hall, clutching one another. Both were weeping and Kíli screamed when Thorin turned to look at them, his mouth dripping gore onto the floor.

 _Go back inside!_ he wanted to snap. _We told you to stay inside!_

Who knew how many wargs had broken the perimeter around the village? Who knew how many yet lurked in darkness. Thorin heard no howls and growling, but that did not mean more of the beasts did not come down from the forests in droves. The immediate danger was gone, but what more threatened them he could not say.

Both boys stood stock still and terrified at the creature that loomed over them, huge, black, and terrifying. They had never seen a warg before in their lives, what did they know of the difference between wolves and wargs? To little dwarflings such as them, both creatures posed an equal danger.

 _Back inside!_ Thorin willed them, but they would not move to a silent command. He took a faltering step toward them, but Kíli only cried harder and Fíli held him tight, his face pale and frightened, too frightened to move.

This was the day Thorin dreaded since the morning Fíli was placed in his unwilling arms. The day when the child would look on him and know him for a monster. No one stirred in the surrounding apartments. No door opened, no curious head peeked out. Not a latch on the windows was shaken.

 _Cowards,_ he thought to himself, but he might have been overzealous in his condemnation. If they chose to defend their own families above any others, could he truly blame them?

His own was still in danger and he spared a thought to Dís and Dwalin, in the wilderness, his heart thudding hard in his chest with worry. But Fíli and Kíli were his most immediate concerns and if he could survive the night, he was sure his sister would never forgive him if he lived and her children did not.

Wary of coming to close and frightening them further, Thorin lay down cautiously, in front of the door, ears pricked to any sign or sound of danger from without. He tried to appear as harmless as he could, no easy task when he was bloodspattered and tense all over from fighting. Fíli was staring at him while Kíli sobbed, his face buried in his brother’s nightshirt. Thorin lay his head down, slowly and deliberately atop his forepaws, trying to slow his breathing down.

Then something extraordinary happened. Rather than running to their rooms, as Thorin expected them to do when it was clear he had no intention of attacking them, Fíli took a half-step closer to Thorin, though Kíli squeezed him as hard as he could and made a choked whimpering sound of protest.

 

“It-it’s alright,” Fíli stammered. “He...he don’t mean us no harm, surely. L-looks like Goose, don’t he?”

Kíli peeped out from where he’d hidden his face and chanced a glance at the enormous creature lying across the hallway. He did look like Goose - trebled ten or twenty times himself, but his fur was black all over and his eyes were blue.

Fíli took another step forward and Kíli didn’t try to stop him.

“F-fought off them other wargs good,” he said quietly. “Maybe he ain’t no warg. Could be he’s a big dog like what them Men keeps on their farms.”

“Could be,” Fíli said, biting his lower lip nervously. They were in striking distance, but Thorin sat stock still, wishing they would _go_. There was movement outside, coming closer, dwarves by the sound of it. He should not like to die in sight of his nephews, no matter if they recognized him or not. “Y-you’re alright, aren’t you?”

Mutely, Thorin lifted his head enough to deliberately nod at the child.

Kíli’s fear vanished in an instant. “Smart!” he declared, detaching himself from his brother and running over to Thorin’s side, a hand hovering uncertainly over his head. “You understands us?”

Thorin let out a huff of air and prayed for patience. Curiosity often overcame fear and common sense in his nephews and he wished that he hadn’t moved a muscle, but the damage was done. No sooner had he nodded again than Kíli smiled in delight and patted his head approvingly.

“We ought to keep him,” he declared to Fíli. “Have him be our very own, he can fight wargs for us and go hunting! And when it’s cold he can sleep on our bed!”

“I don’t know as he can fit on our bed,” Fíli observed, coming up behind his brother, head cocked at Thorin in close study. “Mayhap the floor - ”

Just then his nephew’s blue eyes went wide. Like a sleepwalker, he slowly extended his hand until it buried itself in the thick fur around Thorin’s neck. His mouth dropped open in wonderment and he whispered, “Uncle?”

Kíli only just had time to frown at him when the commotion outside came in the ruined entryway of the apartments. Thorin was only just conscious of his sister’s scent, made sharp with fear, before she leapt over the pile of dead wargs in the corridor and flew at her sons. She was bleeding from her left arms, savaged by claws, but seemed otherwise hale as she picked both Fíli and Kíli up off the floor.

“Are you hurt?” she demanded, kissing them over and over, one after the other.

“No, Mam,” Kíli recovered his voice before his brother did. “Big Goose saved us!”

The look she gave Thorin was full of terror. “You have to go,” she pleaded with him. “You’ve got to run, I mean it!”

Dwalin barreled in half a second later. “Come on,” he said to Thorin, gesturing toward the door impatiently. “Nothing on four legs’ll survive the night, mark me. There were half a dozen beasts got into town, all dead, we don’t know if anyone was struck down in their wake, but the people are all in an uproar. _Now.”_

Thorin didn’t need to be told twice. He got up on legs that were only a little unsteady. He didn’t spare his sister or his nephews a backward glance, as much as he dearly wished to. Dwalin ran along behind him, bow held at the ready, his dark eyes darting this way and that to see if they were being pursued.

“If anyone comes,” he spoke quietly, but Thorin heard every word. “I’m going to shoot at you and you’re to run as fast as you can. Don’t worry, I aim on missing.”

It wasn’t necessary to enact that plan for they got a good distance into the forest with no sign of pursuers.

“Enough!” Dwalin said, stopping in the middle of a clearing. He was visibly winded. Thorin paused, assuming his friend would turn back and go to town. He had no idea what Dwalin’s intentions were when he cleared off felled tree trunk and sat down.

“This spot’s good as any,” he said, looking around for anything lurking in the darkness. “I’m having a sit, then I’ll give it a look-round. Unless you’d rather.”

Thorin stared at him and Dwalin let out a weary bark of laughter.

“You’re too damn tragic for your own good,” he announced, tsking in an offended manner. “You thought I was going to leave you by your lonesome? Not on your life.”

He hauled himself up onto his feet, but he didn’t pack away his weapons. “Come on, then, stop looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.”

Their little patch of earth seemed secure as could be for a place aboveground. Dawn was still hours away when Dwalin sat down again, leaning his back against an obliging rock wearily.

“One damned thing after another,” he sighed, then gestured Thorin closer to him. “Come over here and make yourself useful, my legs are freezing.”

They lay side by side for the rest of the night. Dwalin didn’t sleep a wink, but he still had strength enough come morning to wrap Thorin in his cloak and carry him back to his rooms over his shoulder. The bodies of the wargs had been cleared away and makeshift wooden doors fitted into place to keep the draft out. The rest of the village lay sleeping in the relative comfort that daylight provided them.

Dís met them at the door with coffee for Dwalin and a blanket for Thorin. She wrapped it around him as she embraced him, whispering, “Thank you,” in his ear as she kissed his cheek.

Thorin could do nothing more than nod in utter exhaustion, but he collected himself enough to ask, “The lads?”

“Sleeping,” she said. “Worn out, both of them. You were every inch the hero, so I’m heard. Took on two wargs single-handed, saved them and all the other sorry sods who pay rent here.”

“They know,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Dís pulled back enough so that he could see her nod. “Aye, well, Fíli. Kíli thinks you were Goose come to life to save them both, I was too tired to correct him. Fíli got an inkling when he heard the commotion, went to fetch you ,and saw the door caved in, you were gone...we’ll talk later, go to bed.”

“I’ll fry something up - ” Dwalin said, but Dís shook her head and cut him off.

“You won’t.” Dís got an arm around Thorin’s waist to keep him standing upright and shoved Dwalin with her free hand in the direction of her own chamber. “Off you go. You both look dead on your feet.”

“What’d you tell the neighbors?” Thorin asked as he made his painful way into bed. The marks on his skin were vanished, but he fancied he could still feel every scrape and his stomach churned terribly; probably from swallowing blood.

“I didn’t tell them anything, they came to their own conclusions,” she said softly, tucking him in to the chin as if he was one of her sons. “Assumed the house had been broken into, you fended off the beasts and then ran off with Dwalin to run the last of them out. It’s as I said, you’re quite the hero.”

Thorin did not feel heroic. He felt ill and tired. Despite what must have been a thorough scrub, Dís still smelled faintly of the wargs he’d killed and he knew instantly who had hidden the evidence of _how_ he’d fended off the beasts. “You do too much for me.”

She kissed him on his brow. “No more than you deserve,” she said, bumping their heads together before she rose. “I need to send word to Balin. Promised I would, just as soon as you both came back. Have a sleep, I’ll make your favorite breakfast when you wake.”

It was nearer noontime than breakfast time when Thorin woke. He found he’d gained two bedfellows in the meanwhile. Curled up on either side of him were Fíli and Kíli, both fast asleep. Dís poked her head in, looking more at ease than Thorin had seen her since Dwalin came in the night before.

“I told them you were resting,” she informed him quietly. “But they wouldn’t be kept out. Said as there wasn’t a door to close on your room and they’re only not to go in when the door’s shut that they could do as they pleased. I didn’t have it in me to argue with them.”

Thorin wasn’t sure she would have argued with them in any case. There was a look of deep satisfaction on Dís’s face as she looked at the picture the three of them made. Kíli made to roll over and would have fallen off the bed had Thorin not been lightning-quick with a hand to steady him. He wore no gloves, but he did not take his hand away until Kíli started to rouse himself, drawing a fist across his eyes and yawning.

“Morning,” he said. His hair stuck up all over and he seemed more asleep than awake. “Breakfast?”

“Uncle first,” Dís said, picking him up and settling him on her hip. “Then you.”

Fíli stayed still, eyes closed for a few long minutes, but Thorin knew he was only feigning slumber. Thorin reached for the worn leather gloves on his bedside table and pulled them on, only to find Fíli laying with his eyes open, staring at his hands.

Thorin paused for a moment, then put the second glove on, hiding them from sight. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what there was to say.

“Are you alright?” Fíli asked, looking him up and down nervously. “You was awful bloody last night.”

Thorin nodded, “I’m fine,” he said shortly. “And yourself?”

“Fine,” Fíli answered. Hesitantly, he reached for one of Thorin’s gloved hands, then looked up at him nervously. “Can I see?”

 _No,_ Thorin nearly snapped, but held his tongue. Fíli had already seen him at his worst. What more harm could be done?

He peeled the glove off his left hand and let his palm rest on the top of the blankets. Fíli touched the pale skin beneath and stroked the tip of his finger down the back of one of his claws, canny enough not to touch the point. “Do they hurt?” he asked. “Is that why you wear them gloves?”

“They don’t hurt,” Thorin replied. “It’s only that they’re rather ugly and not good for looking at.”

“Oh,” Fíli said. He put his hands in his lap and Thorin replaced the glove he’d drawn off, prepared for another question. _Why do you turn into something so frightening?_ was what he expected, but Fíli surprised him. “Did we used to stay along of you? Some nights? When I was little?”

“You’re still little,” Thorin replied before he could stop himself. Fíli pouted and Thorin almost smiled, but could not quite manage it. “You did. Long ago. Your amad and I thought you were too young to remember.”

“I don’t really remember,” Fíli confided. “Not proper remembering. Only...little things. That you was big and fluffy and nice to hug. Big enough to ride, like a pony. Sometimes I pretended to do such with Goose, if he was big, get on his back and have an adventure.”

“I don’t have adventures,” Thorin replied. “Best keep that to your imaginings.”

Fíli nodded slowly. “No one can’t ever know, eh? Mam said so last even, she said, not to tell.”

“That’s right,” Thorin agreed. He took his nephews hands in his and looked him straight in the eye. “It’s a very grown-up responsibility. But you mustn’t tell. Do you understand?”

Fíli nodded, wide-eyed and solemn. “Would folk try to hunt you? Like a stag or a boar?”

“They’d probably do more than hunt me,” Thorin said, though he curtailed his speech there. His imaginings were not fit to voice aloud to little ears. “No one would sleep easy if they knew there was a monster among them.”

His words horrified his nephew nevertheless. Fíli stood up on the bed and embraced Thorin tightly around the neck. “No!” he declare passionately. “You isn’t no monster! No, no, no! You kept us safe all the while last night. Monsters wouldn’t’ve done such, they’d have had us for supper!”

Thorin lay a hand against Fíli’s back and rubbed soothing circles through his nightshirt. “Hush,” he said quietly. “Hush now.”

Overcome, the little fellow started crying. “I don’t want no one to hunt you down,” he whimpered. Thorin untangled the lad’s arms from around his neck and pulled away so Fíli had to look at him.

“They won’t,” he said firmly. “Just so long as they don’t find out. You’re a good, clever lad. You can keep a secret, can’t you?”

Fíli sniffed and nodded that he could. Then he frowned and whispered, “I don’t know as Kíli can. But there’s no one as minds him, for he’s always telling tales.”

“Don’t worry about Kíli,” Thorin said reassuringly. “Don’t worry about anything. Just say nothing about last night. Do you promise?”

“I promise,” Fíli swore, placing his tiny fist over his heart. “On the blades an’ axes of our ancestors.”

Thorin kissed his forehead very gently, “There’s a good lad. Go on. I’ll dress, you help Mam with breakfast, will you?”

“Alright,” Fíli agreed, quick to obey. In the doorway, he turned back and said. “I love you lots, Uncle Thorin. Sorry I forgot to say right off. Mam said I ought to tell you as sometimes you forget nice things and only ‘member bad things.”

 _When there’s so much more bad than good,_ Thorin thought as he was left alone in his room, _it’s easy to remember the bad._

This day, however, was a good day. No one went in to work, but Dís made herself busy laying out a fine feast of eggs, ham and bacon, which they all devoured the moment it was set on the table. Dwalin remained with them all evening and Balin came later, claiming that he had no diversion without his two favorite pests - ah, slip of the tongue - _pupils_.

They all watched Kíli and listened closely to him, but he never once gave voice to the fright he’d suffered that night, not even his wild story about his brother’s favorite toy coming to life and fighting wargs in defense of them. He was a resilient little dwarfling, but Thorin did not for a second believe that he had forgotten.

Yet they did not now pout and whinge when he refused to roughhouse with them. They did not hide his gloves when he’d gone for a wash or took them off to eat on a lark. And when, some nights he vanished from the dinner table before it was quite dark outside, they did not cast longing looks at the new stonework and ask their mother in plaintive tones _why_ they couldn’t see Uncle Thorin for just a minute.

Neither did they shy away from him. Both lads fought and squabbled over who would sit in their uncle’s lap while he told them a story (never mind that they both fit, they were fighting over the privilege of having him for their own personal chair). They kissed him goodnight, every night, just as their mother did. And when they had something to show him or needed to walk beside him in the streets, they took his hands without a second’s pause. If anything, they were more affectionate than they had been before, freer with I-love-yous, perhaps because they knew at long last that their uncle’s caution was nothing to do with them

There was a heavy responsibility to being Thorin’s protectors, but it was a burden the brothers were happy to share; their uncle looked after them so well that it pleased them to take care of him in turn.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a two-parter, Part One roughly takes place in the middle of my story _Honored Guests_. It's not necessary to read it to know what's going on here, I summarize all the relevant plot stuff. It was just getting REALLY long and I didn't want the one chapter to feel like it was dragging, so I'm cutting it in half. 
> 
> We're kind of veering off very slightly from focusing on Thorin's lycanthropy as the driving force of the plot here, more getting into how Thorin being a werewolf changes things for everyone around him (and how some things stay exactly the same).
> 
>  **Warnings:** For **unplanned pregnancy** , **pregnancy out of wedlock** , and **assigned at birth gender language**. Also there's are some attitudes that could be considered **slut-shaming**. It's much more complicated than that in the context of the world and the characters, but it still sort of reads that way - I have some very in-depth headcanons about dwarves, marriage, widowhood, sex, and the like that I didn't want to talk about too much because it felt like Exposition Hour, but I'm happy to share if you want to know.
> 
> And one last thing - the phrase "Muhudel Mahal," basically means 'Blessings of the Maker,' (according to the Dwarrow Scholar) and I use it as a traditional thing dwarves say when a pregnancy is announced, often shortened 'Muhudel,' like 'mazel tov,' just a general word/phrase that implies congratulations.

One month. That was what Thorin kept telling himself. It would all be over before the summer solstice.

He had not seen his cousin Dáin since the sun set on Moria, hiding the gate from the eyes of Durin’s children forever. Well, for Thorin anyway. Even if the evil in the depths was one day vanquished, he would not allow himself to enter the sacred city; it would despoil the very stone.

But for a month, he could pretend. For a month, he could feign being worthy of the title he inherited. For a month, he could lie.

If he hadn’t been so preoccupied, he might have noticed sooner.

Dís stumbled out of bed, a bleary-eyed mop of hair with legs, as she usually was in the morning. Her expression brightened the moment she smelled sausages.

“Oh, you’re wonderful!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around Thorin and leaning her head on his shoulder. Leaning quite heavily in fact; as if she was about to fall asleep again.

“Don’t get your hair in the food,” he said, nudging her up. “Go on, get...dressed.”

Dís kissed his cheek, not commenting on his strange hesitation, and made her way back to her room, combing her hair out of her eyes with her fingers. She smelled...different. Not _bad_ , certainly. And not different either, still of herself, but slightly deeper. She might have bought a different scent of soap in the market, he was sure he’d smelled it before, but he just couldn’t place it.

It wasn’t until Fíli and Kíli took their places at the table, gently rapping their knives and forks on the tabletop until he doled out equal portions of eggs and sausages (and jam because they were their mother’s children) and Dís came back, looking slightly more presentable, along with Dwalin who looked completely unpresentable (how he could lose his shirt between the front door of the flat and the bedroom, Thorin had no idea), that he realized what the trouble was.

Not trouble. Not quite. If his suspicions were correct, this was joyous news...at least on the surface of it. Because Thorin remembered the last time his sister’s scent had altered abruptly. Little wonder he’d had trouble recalling the last time; it had been more than twenty years ago when she was expecting Kíli.

A baby was always a blessing. _Always._ No matter how impoverished the family was, how downtrodden their circumstances, a family would welcome a child. By extension, a community would welcome a child. But common wisdom and the realities of daily life were not always in agreement.

Fíli and Kíli were five years apart and Thorin knew that his sister suffered the judgment of their neighbors, having two so close together. Two tiny children meant staying back from the forge half the time. She was accused of sloth, laziness. Of expecting her brother and cousin to wait on her while she luxuriated at home. Like a Woman of Man.

Thorin heard the insults, whispered behind cupped hands when they thought he and his sister were out of earshot. _Thought_ being the operative word. They shut their mouths when Thorin turned back to glare at them. And they certainly sang a sweeter tune when he suggested to his friends and family which of the merchant stalls were best left alone until their proprietors learned to mind their manners.

Money spoke more than courtesy. The whispers died to murmurs and soon stopped altogether when the gossips realized they’d lost the favor of the royal family. But Thorin could not control the hearts and minds of their people with the ease that he could open and close his purse.

Remarriage after being widowed was rare to the point that Thorin did not know anyone alive in the village who had done it. Marriage was for life and if one was left a young widow or widower, it was their burden to bear. Ancient taboos these were, from the days when their race was plentiful beneath the earth and thought nothing of going to war among themselves over matters of inheritance following the death of a spouse.

The wars had ended, but the prejudice against remarriage was as strong as ever it was. And thought all children were a gift, the child of a widow was always an object of fascination, if not necessarily scorn.

Irpa had not remarried after the death of her husband Hornbori on the road. For years she had been praised for her steadfastness. The very model of dwarven womanhood. Then Ori was born. And, in some quarters, the praise ceased.

Thorin found such hypocrisy vile. He thought her deserving of still more respect; she wanted a child and bore one in exile. It was her right. And Ori was as sweet and clever a lad as any he’d seen. But he knew many did not see it that way. Irpa was of the royal blood. She common merchant for husband, the father of her eldest two sons. Now she had another son and no husband at all. Some found that funny.

Even the low born were not immune from judgment. Thyra and Bombur were expecting a fifth child. In fat times, their fortune would be considered a blessing from the Maker. In lean, it was an overindulgence by the parents, a risk and waste of limited time and resources.

He might be wrong, he thought, digging through his trunk, trying to find something for Dwalin to wear back to his flat. Did he want to be wrong?

No. They could abide the cruel words of others, their little family. Cruelty was nothing. They had faced greater challenges than the disapprobation of angry neighbors. A baby was a blessing, no matter when it came or under what circumstances. And they needed all the blessings they could get.

 _If_ he was right, Thorin reflected as he took Fíli and Kíli by the hand and marched them off to Balin’s schoolroom. Babes lost in early months were not uncommon. He was no midwife. He was scarcely a true dwarf at all. And so he resolved to say nothing at all until Dís came to him with whatever news she had to tell him - if there was anything to say at all.

In a little private corner of his heart, Thorin reflected as Fíli and Kíli raised their arms for good-bye hugs and kisses, he hoped there would be. Selfish, perhaps, for he adored the nephews he had and would not mind another in the slightest. But his sister was a wonderful mother, with so much love to give. And Dwalin...aye, Dwalin would make a truly excellent father in fact, not merely in deed.

* * *

 

A few weeks later, on their last day at the forge, Dís reflected that a little break might not go amiss. She bent to pick up an armful of wood to feed the flames and stopped halfway down with a pained grunt; her back was aching as if she’d taken a blow the day before, deep down in the muscles.

“Alright?” Thorin asked, already at her side. He dug the meat of his palms into her lower back and gave her a quick rub.

The ache was ebbing as Dís tried to imagine what she’d done to herself in the last few days that might have left her sore. Not work, she hadn’t done anything too strenuous there, lots of finishing details for their orders so they’d leave nothing undone until they could get back to work. She hadn’t sparred with anyone, hadn’t been thrown on the ground or flipped on her back, they’d been too busy for training or fun for going on a month.

“Alright,” Dís nodded, giving Thorin a sweet smile over her shoulder. “You’re _wasted_ in the smithy, you ought to have been a…”

The word ‘masseur’ died on her tongue. It came back to her in a rush. Middle of the night, woke with pain and only just managed to knock on Thorin’s door, white-faced and clutching her belly. Asked him to get Maeva. Well, hadn’t asked, she’d gasped, not sure what was worse, the clench in her womb or the white-hot flame burning her back.

She spent most of the next two days standing when she could, clutching the footboard of the bed or the back of a chair as Thorin very patiently rubbed her back trying to relieve some of the pressure. The pain was so awful it served as an able distraction; she hadn’t been able to spare thought and time and tears wishing her husband was with her.

Some dwarrowdams got ill, couldn’t keep anything down. Others were plagued with lethargy or exhaustion for the first few months. Dís’s back ached when she was in the early stage of a pregnancy.

She straightened up, despite the protesting twinge and stepped away from Thorin. He looked at her, a little concerned. Dwalin wasn’t there, she reminded herself, heart pounding. He’d gone off to get his coat sewn up; it was looking threadbare in the elbows and shoulders, but he couldn’t afford a new one. Cost an arm and a leg getting coats cut for a fellow with his stature.

“I’ve got to…I’ll be back,” she said, making for the side door. “Sorry. Give me an hour; I won’t stop for a meal today.”

She didn’t think she could eat in any case. Not if her suspicions were true.

Thorin didn’t ask her to explain herself, just nodded and waved her off; that ought to have struck her as suspicious, but Dís was too busy trying to remember when she’d last bled.

In the autumn, she realized with a sinking heart. She hadn’t had any linens to wash since before Durin’s Day. And spring was upon them.

On her way to Maeva’s home, she tried to keep herself from panicking. She might be wrong, mightn’t she? A miscalculation, a pulled muscle gone unnoticed. It could be a dozen other things and she and Dwalin were always so careful. Almost always so careful.

Halfway there she ducked into an alley and sat perched on the edge of an obliging rain barrel, panic rising in her throat and pricking hot tears at the corners of her eyes. The worst thing - the very _worst_ thing - was that she’d love another child. Dwalin’s child specifically and she felt like a traitor for it.

Dwarves loved faithfully, unto death and beyond. A widow might take a lover - after twenty or more years of grieving. She hadn’t gone a ten-year when she collapsed into Dwalin’s arms one night, exhausted of strength, of patience, and almost of hope. It had been hard after Kíli was born. Not only did she miss her husband, as she missed _everyone_ she had lost, it was a lean few years. Thorin seemed ill more than he was well and it was a struggle to feed them all. Although nothing had come of it, she was _so_ afraid Thorin would vanish in the night as he once threatened too. She slept with her door wide open and her ears pricked, just in case he tried to sneak away, for fear of being a burden. The greatest burden was the worry that he would leave her, she tried to tell him, but he never seemed to listen.

Dwalin...he understood. Better than most, he understood the strain she was under. Balin spoke with Thorin’s voice when he was indisposed, but Dwalin was Thorin’s hands, taking extra work in the forge to make up for the days when he could not come out. He was at their home more hours than he was at his, pitching in with chores and minding the children. He told Fíli stories until his voice was hoarse and rocked Kíli in his arms as if he was the lad’s own father. How could she not give her heart to him? And why should she deny them the pleasure of touch and lovemaking that they both wanted so badly?

She knew what the villagers called her. Not all, but enough to hear, enough to hurt. Woman of Man. Lady Whore. Inconstant. Fickle. The taunts and jibes had died down, but she knew well enough that they’d be back with a vengeance when they knew she was with child.

But, even so. A child. She could suffer the world’s scorn for such a blessing, couldn’t she? Irpa had done. Held her head high and had her son, no matter which naysayers tongues wagged. And Ori was a darling. But Irpa’s husband had been dead nearly fifty years. Víli was less than twenty-five laid in stone.

But it mightn’t be. She would only know if she asked. So Dís gathered up her breath and her courage and walked the rest of the way to Maeva’s with her head high.

An hour later she walked to the bakery with her shoulders slumped.

“Is your sister here?” she barked at Túfi, who had the gall to brightly wish her good day. He scuttled off to the back and emerged later bearing Thyra who took one look at her and whisked her into the kitchens, sitting her down on a stool next to one of the cool ovens.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, laying a hand on Dís’s head, smoothing her hair back in a sweet, thoughtful gesture that made Dís want to lash out. She did not; she balled her fists and took a breath, closing her eyes. When she opened her mouth, no sound emerged and she shook her head.

Thyra gave her a reassuring pat and went off, presumably to find something to eat. When some dwarves showed their love and care in gems, Thyra and her family did so with food and Dís loved her well for it, though her stomach was tied in so many knots she wasn’t sure she could hold anything down.

“Pork,” she said, dangling a golden-brown pasty under Dís’s nose. “Your favorite, done up with cinnamon and potatoes and all.”

“Not hungry, thanks just the same,” Dís replied faintly.

“I’ll wrap it up for later,” Thyra said easily, lifting a clean cloth from a neatly folded pile, leaving the spicy-smelling little bundle to keep warm on the bricks. Her small, soft hand rubbed soothing circles on Dís’s back and she ventured, “Family trouble?”

Dís gave a hollow laugh. “You could say that.”

“Worried ‘bout your fine cousin coming over? You needn’t - I’ve offered to help you clean house, hasn’t I? Or I’ll send me sister round, she’s a tart thing, but she can shine a floor like…” Thyra trailed off for Dís was shaking her head, arms folded tightly over her chest. “Not your cousin, then. Do you want to tell me? Or shall I guess? Or keep quiet?”

“Guess,” Dís said, not sure why she couldn’t bring herself to say it, but speaking it aloud would make it real, would mean it was happening and she had been _such_ a fool. What would her mother say?

“Is it…” Thyra glanced around to be sure there weren’t any eavesdropping brothers around and whispered, “Thorin? Is he doing poorly?”

Dís shook her head.

“Not Thorin, well, that’s a blessing anyhow - ” Something in Dís’s posture tensed on the word ‘blessing.’ Thyra stared at her for a long moment, then the hand that had idly been resting on her own heavy round stomach went to her mouth and she gasped, “You’re expecting!”

Dís nodded for half a second before Thyra seized her and she was crushed against her friend’s bosom.

“Oh, that’s _wonderful!”_ she gushed. “Ours’ll be best friends! Two wee playmates for Gimli, have you told Hervor?”

“I’ve just told you,” Dís said, then corrected herself. “I _haven’t_ even told you. I’ve just come from Maeva...wonderful? Is that that the word you want to use?”

“Aye, can’t think o’nothing better,” Thyra pulled back, nodding firmly. “What was it you said when you found I were expecting? Muhudel Mahal, five times blest is five times favored, aye? Thrice blest, thrice favored.”

Dís looked doubtful. “Or thrice wanton. Well, once wanton, I was married for the first two.”

“Nonsense,” Thyra waved a hand as if clearing smoke. “Them’s old-fashioned grandsires who think such, mark me. And since when do you listen to their say-so?”

“When there’s seven-score of those grandsires coming to the Blue Mountains to parley with my brother,” she sighed, leaning her head back against the stone wall behind her. “When I know there are dozens more in the village who laid odds down on how soon I’d fall with child when Dwalin started staying the night. When I’m sure _you’ve_ got kin who’ll think me an awfully changeable wench whose husband was no sooner cold in the earth than she took up with another.”

Dís was crying again, but Thyra was quick with a rag to daub her eyes before she could have at it with her hands. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re on about,” she said seriously. “Or who you can mean. Me kin indeed - they’ll be overjoyed.”

“They won’t think I used Víli ill?”

The rag was gone and Thyra hugged her again, leaning her chin atop Dís’s head and kissing her long and hard.

“Not a jot,” she replied immediately. “You and Dwalin hasn’t exactly been carrying on on the sly, eh? And there’s no shame in that - none so far as we’re concerned. Víli’d want you to be lonesome least of all, and that’s a fact. D’you...reckon as you’ll be married? You and Dwalin? They’re not a soul in the world who’d fight you for the boys, you know, and they’re rightly Thorin’s, isn’t that so?”

“Aye, Thorin’s,” Dís confirmed. Legally, Thorin’s sons. Raised, practically as Thorin’s sons, but Víli was their adad. Their father. And sometimes her heart still tore itself in two over the fact that he’d been denied them and they him. “I don’t...I don’t know. I haven’t told him. I haven’t told _anyone._ And I don’t know as there’s anyone in this village who’ll draw up a marriage contract.”

Thyra looked confused, “Glóin, surely - ”

“Glóin doesn’t want aught to do with us,” Dís cut her off firmly. “He’d hardly ever come by, but for being family and his mother forcing him to go visiting. Never stays long, he...he and Thorin don’t get on. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know, but they’re both stubborn. And this’ll be the straw that breaks the mule’s back. He’ll write us off as utterly hopeless.”

“Hervor won’t let him,” Thyra insisted. “She loves you too well - oh, go on and tell her, she’ll be cheered! And she’ll cheer _you_ up, I’ll wager. Better than me, that’s for certain.”

“You do alright,” Dís said, giving her friend a small smile. “Thanks.”

“No need, but you’re very welcome,” Thyra said, pressing the pasty into her hand. “Go on, call on Hervor - no, wait, afore you do, tell Thorin. That’ll put a smile on his face. I know it’s none o’me business, but them lads do him a world o’good. And I’m sure this one’ll be just as sweet - a _girl_ , think o’that! Wouldn’t he be tickled?”

Dís was fairly sure nothing could ‘tickle’ her brother anymore, but he might not react all too terribly at the news. Maeva thought she was about three or four months gone, probably closer to four. The timing could have been better, but it could have been worse; she’d only be showing a little by the time the nobles came and a little more than that when they left. Easily hidden under loose tunics and the right cut of coat. Her best was high-waisted anyway, in the old fashion of Erebor. That was one tradition that would do her well, even if she seemed to trample on the rest of their customs.

Dís unwrapped her pasty as she walked and nibbled on it. Warm and sweet and spicy, just as she liked it. Before she went back to the forge (Thorin would worry that she’d been gone so long) she decided to make a little detour to the butcher’s, just to stop in and say good-morrow.

It was another hour before Dís found herself on the street again. She was half deaf from Hervor _shrieking_ her delight in her ear. Her face was kissed a dozen times, her stomach a half dozen and she was fairly sure she had a cracked rib from how hard she’d been squeezed by her friend who was, as Thyra predicted, thrilled beyond words.

When she was through hugging Dís, she hugged her father who bid her a very cordial congratulations and then Gimli who seemed a little overwhelmed by all the shouting, but nevertheless smiled when his mother kissed him and said that he was getting _another_ friend on the way because he had the two best almost-aunties that ever were.

Hervor probably would have kept her until nightfall until she let slip that she hadn’t told Thorin yet. Then she was shooed out the door with urgent hands at her back and repeated pleas to tell him at _once_ because he would be _so_ happy and it would be _so_ good for him.

It seemed her friends were just as concerned about the good this baby would do her brother as much as the expected joy a child would bring her. The thought made her smile.

Thorin was at his best with the boys, she thought. He never forgot - how could he? - his curse, but they eased. Especially now. No one said a word about it, but there was an understanding amongst all of them, they could all speak around it, like they were talking their own language in the silences. Fíli and Kíli loved their uncle with all their hearts; she was sure this one would too and there was truth in what Thyra said about triple blessings. More love, and more to love was never a bad thing, was it? They were doing better now, with money, though they weren’t rich. They would get by.

Anyway, she mused, approaching the forge with something like ease in her step. A child of Dwalin’s couldn’t help loving Thorin; he was likely to be the baby’s favorite person, given who the mother and father were.

Thorin forgot himself and looked for her before she was within reasonable earshot. “Alright?” he called out the side door as she jogged to meet him.

“Alright,” she nodded. “Well, I...you’re going to be an uncle. Again.”

He did look happy. For once, in the open air Thorin smiled. A genuine smile, that showed his teeth and he gathered her up in a swift embrace, kissing her cheeks and muttering, “Muhudel, namadel, muhudel.” Happy. But not surprised.

* * *

 

Telling Dwalin turned out to be a more complicated matter than telling Thorin. Out of a sense of duty or propriety or...some other very noble virtue, he took to spending most of his time in the rooms he shared with his brother. Once the envoys from the other Kingdoms arrived, their time was much preoccupied, Dís in accompanying Thorin from place to place, occasionally serving as a sounding board or else providing an arm to squeeze or a foot to kick when he thought their peers were speaking with particular idiocy or naivete. Dwalin played the role of spear-carrier, relegated to the outer reaches of the halls.

It was impossible to find a moment together, at least a private moment. For hours at feasts and during sessions of engagement she could see him or stand by him, but she couldn’t really talk to him, not without being overheard.

She made some veiled comments about how, if he was unengaged for the evening, he should come and see them, the children missed him, Thorin had something he wanted to discuss (Thorin actually offered to tell him for her, but she forbade it; this was news she thought was her right to share alone), but he never took the bait.

Dís was starting to panic and worry that she had done something to offend him. He looked awfully surly when she danced with Dáin the night he got in that fight with one of his retainers over stories of love and lore. It was an absolutely stupid argument - on the retainer’s part, not Dwalin’s, he was brilliant as always.

Dwarves loved faithfully. That was the point the young dwarrow-lad, Borr, had been trying to make. Jealous love, love to death and beyond, he said was the hallmark of their race. Dís felt her ears burning throughout the conversation and kept her eyes on the table, trying not to look up for fear that every single person they were supping with would be staring at her.

Dwalin, bless him, told Borr his logic was faulty and more to the point, his interpretation of the tale - Sognir and the Slaying of the Five Thousand - was incorrect. It was an ancient legend, and a bloody one about a dwarf who’s single-minded pursual of a dwarrowdam resulted in slaughter on the night of her wedding to another. Dwalin argued that it was a cautionary tale about greed, not, as Borr contended, an example of faithful love taken to an extreme.

“If that’s faith, I’ll be an adulterer,” Dwalin said and Dís’s only thought was that she wanted the floor to open up and cast her into the molten bowels of the earth. There was a definite outer curve to her stomach beneath the loose fabric of her tunic and in a short time the evidence of their ‘adultery’ would be on display for all the world to gawk at.

The room spun dangerously, going grey around the edges. Dís stood up too quickly, made some sort of excuse about the lads being tired and made her excuses to leave, Fíli on her hip. Maeva took pity on her and carried Kíli home herself.

“I take it he doesn’t know the good news?” she ventured to ask quietly, jogging to keep up with Dís’s long strides.

“No,” she said through gritted teeth.

Maeva nodded, without a hint of judgment in her face or her voice. Dís wished that she would shout at her; at least if she was criticized she would know for certain that she was doing something wrong. “I shouldn’t wonder; he’d hardly have spoken so rashly if he had; then again, Dwalin always did have his passions about literature, gets that from his mother, bless her hands.”

When they got back to the flat, Maeva had to open the door. Dís’s free hand fumbled her keys so badly she kept dropping them. Once Fíli and Kíli were tucked away in bed, Maeva took Dís by the arms before she left, peering up into her face with all the compassion in the world. Dís wished she’d just leave her alone to have a cry, but it wasn’t to be.

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” she insisted, hands tight around Dís’s elbows. _“Nothing._ There’s custom and there’s law and there’s reason for both, aye, but it’s a stiff-necked dwarf indeed who can’t see that the world isn’t built of onyx and limestone.”

“You wouldn’t,” Dís said, staring down at the top of Maeva’s faded carroty hair. “If Uncle Gróin had - ”

“I can’t say what I would or wouldn’t do,” Maeva replied patiently. “Seeing as how your uncle’s alive and well and likely to survive us all. Listen to me, my dear girl. We all love you very much. We are all going to love this child very much. And you haven’t done anything wrong. Nothing that wants chastising, no matter what some fluffy-bearded youngling from the Iron Hills thinks about poetry.”

Maeva got up on her toes to kiss her cheeks and wished her a very sweet good-night. Dís kissed her in return and wished the same, but didn’t go to bed right away. She was still awake when Thorin got in hours later, sipping tea by a small fire.

“Dwalin had a fight,” he announced, pouring himself a cup as well though he loathed tea in general. “With Borr. I’m almost relieved; for once I’m not the most troublesome member of this family.”

“Is Borr still alive?” she asked, not entirely serious, sometimes those reedy scholarly types could pack quite a wallop, but from what she’d seen of him, she did not get the sense that he was a dwarf particularly used to brawling.

“Roughed up a bit, but whole,” Thorin replied, settling in to the chair beside her. “Serves him right. If Nar wasn’t Dáin’s right hand, I’d have let him go on. Show the lad what harm comes of running your mouth with too much drink in your belly.”

“Mmm,” Dís said, staring at the flames. Thorin got up and stood in front of her, the smooth leather of his gloves brushing her cheek tenderly.

“Ey, now,” he said softly. “It’s alright.”

“Is it?” she asked, looking up at him, voice wavering pitifully. “Really? I know what you think and what Thyra thinks and what Hervor thinks and Maeva...but you all love me, don’t you? You love us. The rest of the world doesn’t care a brass farthing and there are plenty of dwarves out there who would love nothing more than watching our downfall. If we haven’t fallen already.”

A shadow passed over Thorin’s face and he straightened up. Dís cursed herself for a fool and reached out to grab his hand, “That is _not_ what I - ”

Thorin stopped trying to leave, took a breath, and shook his head. “I know it’s not. I know, I’m sorry. But listen...this isn’t a bad thing. No matter what the rest of the world says, it’s a _blessing._ We’ve suffered falls, my lass. This is nothing like.”

Dís sighed and rubbed her eyes, which, of course, were filling with tears. When she was a child she’d made a vow not to cry in front of her brother, but she couldn’t help herself.

“I don’t want to cause trouble for you,” she mumbled. “I don’t want you to have to defend me, I don’t want folk to think badly about you because of me.”

Then Thorin did something strange; he laughed. Not a proper laugh at all, a tired one, but it made Dís look up at him.

“That’s funny,” Thorin remarked. “I’ve thought the same thing about you for nearly forty years.”

“It’s...it’s not the same thing,” she frowned. “You didn’t - you don’t have a choice. And...you’ll pardon my saying so, but this isn’t something you can keep hidden. Not for much longer, anyway.”

“Because it’s not shameful,” Thorin said. As easily as if she was a rag doll, he pulled her to his feet and into his arms. Dís went willingly and gratefully, laying her head on his shoulder and sighing. “Because folk might have words, but you don’t have to listen...you do have to tell Dwalin.”

This time it was Dís’s turn to give a tired little laugh. “Poor fellow; he’ll be the last to know.”

Thorin kissed her brow and gave her a little push in the direction of her bed, “Go on, get some sleep. I’ll try to find you time on the morrow, order him to come to supper. After the night he’s had, he could do with some good news.”

Despite Thorin’s best intentions, Dwalin disappeared out of the Mountain before he could buttonhole him and entreat him to supper. When he tried to ask Balin where his brother was off to in such a hurry, he received no proper answer. Balin only said he did not know, but he had an engagement to keep, so if Thorin would excuse him…

That night, Thorin, Dís, and the children enjoyed a quiet meal at home. Nothing compared to the spread laid out for all the best and brightest dwarven nobility, but it sufficed. Fíli and Kíli apparently spent the day quite eventfully with their friends, impressed by their tales of Dáin’s armor-bedecked ponies, they fashioned their own out of sticks and proceeded to gallop up and down such countryside as could be traversed behind the market square.

“I told ‘em we should visit Dáin’s ponies,” Fíli informed his uncle. “Bili didn’t believe me that they was gilt all over.”

“As well he shouldn’t,” Dís chimed in. “For they weren’t. Or do you mean to tell me that their snouts were painted with gold?”

“That’d be grand!” Kíli chirruped. “For then they’d sneeze coins!”

“That must be how the Iron Hills came by its wealth,” Thorin remarked wryly. “And they’ve kept the secret from us all this time, the traitors.”

Dís laughed and so did Fíli. Kíli just stared at his uncle with wide, credulous eyes and asked if Dáin might gift him one for his Name Day.

“Your Name Day’s three years off,” Fíli reminded him.

“Oh,” Kíli pouted. Then perked up, “What about a ride for a favor? We wanted to go today, but Missus Hervor left Gimli by us to mind and he’s too little for ponies, so we didn’t go a-visiting.”

“I’ll ask him on the morrow,” Thorin vowed and Kíli and Fíli whooped and hollered their excitement.

“It was good that you thought of Gimli,” Dís said, smoothing Kíli’s hair out of his face and away from his food. “You’re very able little minders.”

Kíli beamed brightly at the praise. “I like looking after him,” he said. “S’like having a little brother all me own. He’s my chum, Gimli.”

“You’d like a little brother?” Thorin asked in a would-be-casual way that made Dís glare at him over the table and stomp on his foot. He took the punishment without wincing. “Or a sister?”

“Oh, aye,” Kíli nodded eagerly. “Then I could teach ‘em and look after ‘em and they’d _have_ to mind me ‘cos I’d be bigger and smarter’n them.”

“You don’t mind me!” Fíli declared, outraged. “And I’m bigger’n smarter’n you!”

“You’re bigger,” Kíli agreed, then took a massive bite of potatoes which he chewed with a smile on his face.

“Uncle!” Fíli complained, whining and tugging on Thorin’s sleeve. “I’m smarter too! Isn’t I smarter? MAM! I’m smarter, that’s so!”

“You’re both very clever,” Dís said diplomatically.

“You’re both clever,” Thorin echoed. “In certain ways - Kíli just because you’ve put the napkin over your cabbage doesn’t mean it’s not there anymore. Tuck in.”

The look he gave Dís was so innocent, butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth, but she read the triumph in her brother’s eyes. There was at least one more soul who’d be happy about her news. Fíli hadn’t said anything either way, but he loved his brother, she knew that as much as she knew anything. Even if he didn’t always demonstrate that love in the most obvious ways.

But it felt wrong to tell the lads before she told Dwalin. It felt wrong to tell Thyra, and Hervor, and even Thorin before she told Dwalin. And it felt _especially_ wrong to know that Thyra had probably told Bombur who had probably told Bofur who would have definitely told Bifur and that Hervor had definitely told Vigg (and Gimli, but Gimli had more discretion than the lot of them put together), had probably told Glóin who would definitely have told his brother who would have told his father.

The point being that if she didn’t tell Dwalin now, he was probably going to hear about it from someone who didn’t know any of them, a humiliating prospect. As she tucked her sons into bed that night, Dís vowed to herself that she would get up early and try to catch Dwalin before he left his flat.

She did get up early. Far earlier than she intended to. She hadn’t been more than an hour in bed before she was startled out of a sound sleep by raised voices in the kitchen.

 **“What question of lineage?”** Thorin was bellowing louder than Dís had heard him speak in years. Usually he kept his anger contained; clenched fists and tight whispers. **“There is none and curse Dáin for a half-wit if he doesn’t realize it! Curse him for a _traitor_ if he does!”**

Dís ran too the door just in time to watch Thorin punch a wall. The plaster crumbled and so too went the stone, falling to rubble and dust on the floor. “What’s going on?” she asked, blinking sleep out of her eyes and trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

Thorin stood closest to her, furious, with grit and dust on his bare clenched fist - they must have gotten him out of bed as well. ‘They’ being Dwalin, standing in the corner with his arms folded, no expression on his face or betrayed by his dark eyes. And _Nori_ who Dís hadn’t seen since the end of summer. He was staring at Thorin with wide eyes which only got wider when he saw her emerge from the doorway.

“Before anyone says anything,” he said, holding his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender. “I wanted to wake you up.”

“You did,” she replied. “And the lads, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Mindful that there were certain conversations (namely those that got Thorin punching walls), that were not suitable for young ears, she shut the door behind her and folded her arms at her kinsman, waiting expectantly for someone to explain themselves.

Dwalin didn’t move, didn’t speak - Dís honestly wasn’t sure whether or not he was still breathing. Thorin’s jaw was clenched so hard she started listening for the sound of cracking teeth. Nori looked the most unruffled of the three of them and given the fact that when Nori came home it usually meant he was broke, indebted, or wanted, that was saying something.

“Dáin came to the Ered Luin to propose to you,” Nori said after a short, tense silence. “That’s what that Borr fellow said. In the interest of securing the future of Durin’s line, the throne of Erebor, the reunion of your family...why are you laughing?”

Was she laughing? Dís couldn’t tell, she’d meant to begin crying. But her shoulders were shaking with repressed giggles and the hand over her mouth was meant to stifle a snort, not a sob. Thorin looked at her warily, as though unsure whether her mirth was genuine or the sign of a mind cracked under too much pressure and worry. Dwalin finally stepped forward, his brow furrowed over dark, shadowed eyes.

“It’s not funny,” he snapped. “He means to do it, if Nori’s heard right”

“Since when do you - ” Dís had to pause, had to catch her breath, but she couldn’t stop laughing any more than she could stop herself crying earlier. “Since when do you listen to _Nori?”_

“Hey!” Nori still had enough of his wits about him to be offended, which made Dís laugh even harder. “I heard with my own two ears, from the horse’s mouth - the plan is to marry you and Dáin and have an heir or two to supplant Fíli and Kíli to reunite the thrones of Erebor and the Iron Hills.”

It was too much, it was too much, Dís wasn’t even making any sounds at all, just shaking all over, eyes tearing. Did it still count as laughter when it looked like weeping? But she wasn’t crying, really. She’d been crying all month. This wasn’t sad, it wasn’t even worrisome. It was the most absurd thing she’d ever heard in her entire life.

“Dís,” Dwalin said, stomping over to her and giving her shoulders a rattle. “He means to take you away from us.”

She shook her head and brought her hand to her mouth, biting down hard on her tongue. She couldn’t open her eyes, if she looked at them, at any of them, she’d start laughing again.

“That’ll be difficult,” she said breathlessly. “To marry and get me with an heir when…” Another deep breath, a steadying breath and then she trusted herself enough to look up, “When I’m carrying your child.”

The very timely pushing of a chair by way of Nori’s quick moving feet was the only thing that stopped Dwalin’s suddenly jelly-like legs from sending him crashing to the floor. As he’d not let go of Dís’s shoulders, she half fell on top of him. Thorin gave Nori an impressed little nod, then marched him out the door, closing it gently behind them to give his sister and his best friend some privacy; naturally he could hear every word, but he thought it polite to maintain the illusion.

“You’re _what?”_ Dwalin asked when he found his voice again. “How long?”

“Four months gone, or there abouts, a bit more now,” Dís replied, taking one of his hands and laying it over her stomach. There wasn’t much to feel, but Dwalin’s huge, rough hands were as sensitive as any craftsman’s and he knew every inch of her body. The little bump on her belly might not have been obvious beneath her clothes, but he let out a breath through his teeth when he felt it. “I’d have told you sooner, but you made a ghost of yourself.”

“I didn’t want those Iron Hill bastards to get to talking. About us. About you. Damn it, Dís,” he said. A slow, lovely smile broke through his stormy expression and Dís returned it one of her own. “Really?”

“Really,” she nodded. She’d felt dread, hope, panic, despair, nervousness, and uncertainty about the prospect of being a mother again. For the first time since that morning in the forge, she began to feel excited. “Really. Truly. You’re going to be a father. Are you - ”

Dwalin gathered her close and kissed her in a way that left no doubt about his feelings on the matter. Dís held him tightly and smiled against his mouth. They probably would have carried on all night if Nori hadn’t knocked on the door and called, “Are you decent? Can I come back in? Can I come in even if you _aren’t_ decent?”

Dís broke away from the kiss and called through stone, annoyed, “You don’t even _live_ here!”

“Actually…” Nori poked his head back in the doorway and grinned sheepishly. “Dori and I had a little bitty argument and he might’ve said he doesn’t ever want to see me again. Now, that might be so, but I’m sure my Ma won’t take the news well. Is it alright if I kip here for a bit?”

“Fine,” Dís answered, just as Thorin came in behind Nori and said, “No.”

“Make up a bed on the armchairs or summat,” she said, ignoring Thorin and getting up off Dwalin’s lap to fetch some quilts.

Nori jogged up behind her and embraced her around the waist, getting up on his toes to hook his head around her shoulder and kiss her cheek.

“Many happy wishes and all that!” he said brightly. “If you’re thinking common names, _Nori’s_ not a bad specimen, served me well all these years - ”

This time, Thorin and Dís and Dwalin all chorused as one, “No.”

Nori had the gall to look hurt. “Come now,” he insisted as Dís threw a blanket and spare pillow at him. “I think I’m owed a favor! If I hadn’t come running over with news about the Iron Hills Matchmaking Scheme, you’d have never come out with it.”

Dís bit her tongue to keep herself from saying that she’d had to come out with it in about seven months’ time and instead pointed at the armchairs. “I’m giving you a place to stay, aren’t I?”

Nori deflated a bit. “Aye, suppose you are at that.”

They all went their separate ways to bed after that, Dís and Dwalin to a bed he had neglected for long enough and Thorin to his own room. All of the dwarves in the flat were on the verge of peaceful slumber when Nori called from the sitting room, “What about Nora? If the bairn’s a girl?”

 _“Nori, go to sleep!”_ Thorin shouted. And, thinking it would be poor form to ignore a direct order from the king when he was partaking of said king’s reluctant hospitality, Nori slept.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This one is a DOOZY. Brace yourselves, folks, it's long and it's ALL DURIN FAMILY FEELS. Like. Everyone gets feels. Absolutely everyone. I have divided this section into four distinct subsets of Feels each with Feels subdivisions. Stay hydrated.
> 
> There's a few references to other fics of mine, but you won't be lost if you haven't read them. The stuff about the Iron Hills dignitaries is talked about in MUCH greater detail in _Honored Guests_ , so read that if you're intrigued. The incident with Balin and Dwalin's mother that Gróin discusses occurs in _Live Well and Love._ And the only other relevant bit of information is that 'Dísa' is short for Sigdís, my headcanon for Thrór's wife. Her relationship with Gróin also comes up in _Live Well and Love._
> 
> Thorin's lycanthropy will become central to the plot again soon, I promise!
> 
>  **Warning:** For **assigned at birth gender language** and **childhood insecurity.**

Dwalin told Balin the next day. If anyone else had been watching the scene, they would have found Balin sedate and accepting. Dwalin knew better.

“Should I duck?” Dwalin asked, eyeing the pewter mug on the kitchen table slightly warily.

“No,” Balin said shortly. He heaved a sigh that said so much, though he hadn’t spoken at all. _How many more years am I to spend tidying up after your recklessness, little brother?_ “Your timing might have been better.”

Dwalin rolled his eyes. “Oh, aye? What time would be better, do you think? When we’ve retaken Erebor?”

“Honestly?” Balin asked, raising a bushy dark eyebrow. “That would be preferable. We don’t have the power we once had. And you’re not of the common stock either. The powerful may do what they please with impunity - to an extent, when it comes to things like this. And so too may the overlooked proceed as they will. You two have neither the luxury of power, nor the luxury of invisibility. You see the problem.”

“I hear what you’re telling me the problem is,” Dwalin replied shortly. “And the village better keep their damned tongues in their mouths if they can’t be decent - ”

“But they won’t,” Balin replied succinctly. “Tongues will wag. Heads will shake - and not just the village clothmakers either, but folk upon whom our welcome here _depends._ Our reputation is on uncertain ground as it is and you and Dís will doubtless shake the bedrock.”

Balin could be cruel when he wanted to be. When his temper was excited he could fling cutting words around as deftly as he wielded a sword or a mace. But this wasn’t cruelty. This was practicality. Despite what their friends and family might think about the newest addition to their ranks, they did not live entirely in the cozy bosom of hearth and home. Balin’s sharp tongue could honey itself to seek favor and smooth ruffled feathers. It was a skill he’d learned as a child and had honed in the years following Thorin’s infirmity.

Despite Thorin’s role as king, despite all he did for his people, Balin was the mortar and Thorin the brick that kept the settlers of the Ered Luin safe. Balin spoke in Thorin’s stead when he was indisposed. Balin remembered procedures of court and intricacies of law that had been pushed out of Thorin’s mind to make room for the things he needed to know to survive, not to rule. This was one more burden laid upon him by his brother and his cousin, one more problem to solve, one more scandal to negotiate.

“So, you’re not going to be happy about this at all?” Dwalin asked, trying and failing to keep the plea out of his voice. “Just to be absolutely clear.”

“I’m not happy,” Balin confirmed, finishing his coffee so he didn’t have to see how Dwalin’s face twisted in disappointment. “If it’s any consolation, I wish I could be.”

Dís had no idea how he took the news at first, but when she saw him later in the afternoon, he managed a restrained smile and swift embrace - though he did imply that perhaps the joyous news ought not be spread around the town while their guests were amongst them.

As for the marriage plot, it fell through due to a technicality. Although Dáin’s retainers thought a marriage to the Princess of Erebor would be a practical, politically sound decision, they had neglected to ask Dáin what he thought about the matter. As it turned out, he had a sweetheart of his own in the East and though he had the utmost respect for his lady cousin, his heart was already cut for a different setting.

Due to the need for discretion, Fíli and Kíli were not told until the last of the caravans left the Ered Luin. Not a moment too soon either for Dís’s jerkins were growing rather uncomfortable through the middle and Fíli had been looking her over with some suspicion, especially after Thyra was delivered of a baby girl, who she and Bombur decided to call her Varla, after Bombur and Bofur’s late aunt, Víli’s mother.

One morning, while Thorin prepared breakfast, Dís sat down on her sons’ bed and told them that she and Mister Dwalin were going to have a baby - a little brother or sister for them.

Fíli did not seem much bothered by the news either way, accepting the announcement with a nod and a shrug. Kíli, on the other hand, could hardly contain his joy. He leapt out of bed and ran around the room, dancing and twirling with excitement.

“Tomorrow?” he asked eagerly. “How soon?”

“Not for another few months,” Dís was quick to assure him. “Wintertime.”

“Oh,” Kíli frowned, then brightened up. “That’s alright, that’s time, I can make him a present! I can make two presents! Where’s he going to sleep? Along of me and Fíli? There’s room if we squish. Ooh, or is it t’be a girl like what Missus Thyra had? I’d like a sister too. I’d like a brother and a sister! May I have two, please? If Mister Dwalin’s to be their Da, can he be our Da too?”

“Is Uncle making breakfast?” Fíli muttered as his mother patiently tried to explain to her son that the baby would have its own cot and that there was only _one_ , but he could fashion two presents if he was of a mind to, that sounded very generous and brotherly - and though Mister Dwalin was to be this baby’s Da he was still going to remain their Mister Dwalin. Before his mother had time to draw breath to answer his question, he’d hopped off the bed and padded into the kitchen, frowning.

“Did your amad - ” Thorin began, but stopped when he saw Fíli’s expression. “You’re not pleased?”

Fíli shrugged again and scuffed his bare toes against the stone. “I got a brother already. I don’t need another one.”

“It might be a sister,” Thorin replied, but his words did not bolster the lad’s spirits. Fíli climbed onto a chair and traced the grooves in the tabletop with his knife.

For a long moment he made no answer. Nevertheless, the prospect of a sister was no more appealing to him than the idea of having a second brother. Thorin was at a bit of a loss. He was always so good and attentive to the other children he spent his days with. Fíli and Bilfur were two of the eldest children of their small gang, he was especially fond of Ori it seemed, always encouraging him to assert himself more and acting as his protector when he did not. Thorin assumed that any disapproval his sister and cousin would face was going to come from outside their family, not within.

“We only got four chairs,” he observed finally, looking around the table.

“We can buy two more,” Thorin replied, glancing over his shoulder Fíli as he turned the sausages in the skillet.

“They won’t fit.”

The boy’s voice and expression had gone gloomy. His dimples were all but gone and a furrow dug itself between his pale eyebrows. Thorin turned his attention away from the kitchen fire and pulled up the chair next to his nephew. “What’s wrong?”

At first, Fíli shook his head, legs swinging idly beneath him. Then he sighed and said, “If Mam and Mister Dwalin have a baby, what’ll happen to me and Kíli?”

Thorin looked startled. “Nothing at all,” he assured him. “What...come here.”

Fíli did not protest as Thorin lifted him off his chair and into his lap. He curled up against his uncle’s chest and gave a wet little sniffle. “What’s wrong?” Thorin asked quietly.

“If...if Mam and Mister Dwalin have a baby,” he repeated, “me and Kíli won’t fit no more.”

“Fit where?” Thorin asked, brow furrowing. “Around the table?”

 _“Here,”_ Fíli replied with a wave of his hand that encompassed the whole flat. “‘Cos that baby’ll have a Mam and Da. And...and we don’t have a Da. And maybe Mam’ll like having a baby’s whose got one more’n us ones who don’t. And she and Mister Dwalin’ll say that there’s no room for me an’ Kíli. And we’ll have to go ‘way.”

Thorin glanced over at the door to Dís’s room, still shut. He heard Kíli talking a mile a minute, evidently he was still bursting with questions. He tucked Fíli up in a close embrace and wracked his brain trying to think of what to say beyond, _That’s absurd, you aren’t going anywhere._ From experience he knew that concerns dismissed tended to grow into unchecked worries.

“You do have a Da,” Thorin said, seeing Víli in Fíl’s nose, his dimples, the shape of his ears, and of course, his mop of golden waves. “He is with our Maker and our grandsires, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less your Da. And you have your amad. She loves you more than the...moon and the stars and the stones and the sun and all that. Having another child won’t change that a whit. When Missus Irpa had Ori, she didn’t love either of her sons less, did she?”

Fíli nodded his head so hard, it looked like he was about to wobble it off, “Nori went away! He’s not hardly ever there!”

“Nori going away has _naught_ to do with Ori being born,” Thorin replied firmly, cursing himself for using a poor example. “Missus Thyra and Mister Bombur have _five_ children between them and they love them all the same, don’t they?”

Fíli began to nod, slowly, then changed his mind. “But they all got Mister Bombur for a Da and Missus Thyra for a Ma. The same. That’s why they loves ‘em the same, they’re all theirs!”

“Mister Dwalin loves you _very_ much,” Thorin said immediately. It was true. How many times had he walked a fussy Kíli round and round the room until he quieted. How often had he taken Fíli up on his shoulders or in his arms, cooking and cleaning up after them and playing with them and putting them to bed, like they were his own children?

Thorin had seen the look in his eyes when Dwalin and his sister went to the market and he had each of the lads by the hand so they didn’t wander off. Newcomers or traveling tradesmen saw his manner with them and theirs with his. _What a charming family,_ they’d smile. _Wouldn’t you lads, like a treat? You look like you deserve one, well-behaved bairns like yourselves, wouldn’t your adad agree?_

Dís looked faintly embarrassed when such mistakes were made. Dwalin played the part of chagrined cousin often enough, but Thorin knew him well enough not to be fooled, had heard him dig into his pockets often enough saying, _I’m not their father, but they’ve been good enough for a treat,_ to hear, very faintly what he was not saying. I’m not their father; would that I was.

“Mister Dwalin loves you,” he repeated. “And your mother loves you. And I love you. And Mister Balin and Missus Thyra and Mister Bombur and Mister Bofur and Mister Bifur...do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever known a pair of dwarflings as well-loved as you and Kíli?”

Fíli chanced a hopeful glance up. “Not ever?”

“Not ever,” Thorin replied, thinking with a pang upon his father, gone in a heat haze of dust and blood. His mother, ice-cold and frail. Dís, frightened and clutching his arm, _Don’t leave me, please, don’t leave._ “Not in all my life. And when there’s such love to go around as you have, how can you think any of us would ever let you go?”

Finally, he coaxed a smile to Fíli’s face which smoothed the lines of worry from a face that was far, far too young to be wearing any wrinkles at all.

“The table’s still too small,” his nephew said, sliding a hand over it’s surface.

Thorin smiled down at him and gave him a gentle squeeze, “We’ll get another.”

Their conversation did not quite fell all of Fíli’s fears in one blow. He took to walking around their rooms at odd times, often just before bed, worrying over the size of the room, whether or not they could fit another bed into the bedroom he shared with his brother and his mother and Mister Dwalin, sometimes.

“Mayhap Mister Dwalin and Uncle Thorin could share,” Thorin overheard Kíli telling his brother one day. “And Mam could share with the new baby!”

Thorin was dignified enough that he did not inform his nephews that he and Mister Dwalin sharing a bed was rather missing the point of Mister Dwalin moving in with them at all.

“But what about Mister Balin?” Fíli asked worriedly. “He’ll be left all by his lonesome now.”

In truth, Balin was probably happy to be rid of them, for the time being. Thorin walked the boys to and from their lessons and he could tell that Balin was not nearly as cool about everything as he feigned being when he was around Dís. For her he could pretend, for her and the children; with Thorin and Dwalin he did not bother.

Smiles for Fíli and Kíli, curt nods for Thorin. Enquiries to Dís about how she was feeling, silence and pursed lips for Dwalin.

It was quite the turnaround. Normally, Thorin was fretting over every little thing and Balin stood by with a hand on his arm or his shoulder reassuring him that he was doing all he could, that fretting wouldn’t solve their problems and he’d do better to put it out of his mind until morning.

Now it was Thorin trying to tell Balin that things weren’t all that dire, that the business of having children was a private, family matter and he simply wouldn’t discuss it with the Lords and Ladies of the Blue Mountains, as was his right.

Balin only gave him a skeptical look and a non-committal, “As you say,” in reply.

He made to turn back to his living quarters, where the sitting room had been converted into a study-cum-classroom, but paused and looked back up at Thorin. There were shadows under his eyes and his mouth was drawn into a thin, tight line, “But understand this will place our family under closer scrutiny. A scrutiny we can ill afford.”

He said ‘we,’ but Thorin knew he meant ‘you.’ Balin gently shut the door behind him and left Thorin staring at the pores in the stone as he clapped his hands and bid his pupils take out their slates and chalk.

Thorin lingered longer than he normally did after depositing the boys in Balin’s capable hands. It was easy to forget, sometimes, how others thought of him.

Not Thorin the Mad King. Or even Thorin the dangerous beast. Those were epithets and accusations that haunted his every step. There were kinder appellations. Thorin the warrior. Thorin the smith. Even, he chanced to hope, Thorin the guardian of his people in the West.

He was Uncle Thorin, to the children. Brother to Dís, elder brother, which came with its own set of responsibilities. He spent so much time taking care of his people and his family that he forgot that there were still a few souls out there who saw him as requiring care himself.

Not the beast in him. Not the creature that took hold of his body once a month and left him weak and ill in the aftermath. Just him. It was hard, when he felt as old as an Age of the world, to remember that there were still those who saw him as a youngling who wanted looking after.

Thorin almost punched another wall. He didn’t _want_ it. He didn’t want to be looked after, he didn’t want anyone troubling themselves about him. He didn’t want Balin refusing to feel anything but dread at the prospect of this child’s birth because he thought it would put _Thorin_ in danger.

Instead of putting his fist through stone, Thorin turned away and walked back to the forge, shoulders hunched and posture stiff. Oddly, he found himself thinking of the strange conversation he’d had with Fíli, when his nephew thought he and his brother would be unwanted. That they wouldn’t fit.

Maybe now that Dís had something like a husband and her nephews had something like a father…

No. He dismissed the thought before it was complete. If Fíli so feared feeling pushed out, how much worse would he feel to be abandoned instead?

Thorin remembered the last time he’d seen his father, his vacant gaze that turned hard suddenly, flashing with purpose. Thorin had been foolish enough to believe his father would rally himself and remain. That he would not leave them, broken and battered as they were. The next morning, he was gone without a trace.

No, he thought again. If there was scrutiny, he would bear it. If there were questions, he would answer them. Because he remembered what it was to be left behind.

His sister’s children were precious to him as few other things were in the word. Heirs, aye, but more than that. They loved him, despite everything.

Not despite everything. They loved him, simply, purely. It had taken him many years to accept that, but they trusted him implicitly. To keep them safe, to protect them.

They gave him hope. That was why he could not regret a child of his sister’s, even one who had not been born, even one whose coming into the world might cast a pall over their line or leave him vulnerable to scrutiny. Despite the danger, he had hope and that was a rare gift for one such as him.

* * *

 

Fíli got up from the carpet when his mother sat down on the floor by himself and Kíli. They had been racing their carts along the floor, crashing them into chairs and the stones by the fire. With supper left in Mister Dwalin’s hands, she decided to play with them, which was all perfectly well until Kíli asked her to lie down so he could use her tummy as a mountain. Then Fíli didn’t feel like playing anymore.

“Where are you going?” she asked, catching his hand in one of her great big ones. She smiled at him, but Fíli pulled his hand away and walked into his room.

As his mother’s belly got bigger, it was harder and harder for him to pretend she wasn’t having a baby. And since Mister Dwalin had come to stay with them all the time, it also got hard to pretend he was still a member of his family.

Kíli had brown eyes just as Mister Dwalin had. And black hair, just as Mam and Uncle Thorin had. His skin got brown like a walnut in summer. Fíli’s got spotted all over with freckles. His hair was the color of straw and, just as he’d said to his Uncle, he didn’t fit. There were folk who often mistook Kíli for Mister Dwalin’s son, one of the Southron Lords had done at the welcoming feast in the springtime.

When Mister Dwalin said he wasn’t Kíli’s Da, he looked right at Fíli and said he should have known because a child of Mister Dwalin and his Mam’s oughtn’t have had golden hair.

Fíli sat on his bed, staring at the pattern on his quilt, eyes filling with unwanted tears that he brushed away with his fist. Fíli, Víli’s son. He couldn’t even _pretend_ that he belonged to Mister Dwalin. And the new baby would probably look like him. Or like his Mam. Or Kíli. And where would that leave Fíli?

Fíli looked out the window. It had been left open and a warm, sweet-smelling breeze wafted in. Though it was suppertime the sun was still brightly shining down on the Mountain and the road leading into the village was a bright cobbled pathway.

Kíli’s stool was beneath the window in its usual place. He stood on it every morning to watch the sunrise so that he knew when it was time to wake everybody up. Sometimes, Fíli knew, Mister Dwalin watched with him.

Fíli made good use of the stool, climbing on to the edge of the windowsill and hopping down to the ground. He spared one last look at the window, then felt panic flare in his chest. Goose! He’d left Goose behind!

A shadow moved across the room, someone was opening the door. And Fíli ran as if he was being chased by the wargs that his uncle killed that night so many years ago.

Tears blinded him and he stumbled. Now and again voices called out around him to slow down, asked where he was off to in such a rush and _where_ was his mother? The attention only made Fíli run faster, he hardly knew where he was running to.

A half-formed thought made him take the road through the market that led to the mines. Mister Bofur and Mister Bifur might take him in! His father was kin to them, if he was to be his father’s son, surely his cousins would want him. He could make himself useful, he could do chores or help Mister Bifur with his carving. He could -

Fíli tripped over a curbstone and went down hard in the gutter. A cart rolling by nearly took his leg off. He scrambled back, but his knee gave out from under him when he tried to stand. A hand went under his arm to pull himself upright and he screamed and wrenched away, but stopped fighting when a placid voice that had been drilling him on sums that morning said, “Fíli, lad, what are you _doing_ here?”

Fíli’s lower lip wibbled. He tried to open his mouth, but no sound came out and his right leg trembled beneath him and threatened to collapse again. Balin sighed and tucked a parcel under his arm before he lifted Fíli right up off his feet, just as if he was a bundle of cotton.

Mister Balin was very strong, just like Mister Dwalin. But that made sense, Fíli thought as he was taken swiftly to Mister Balin’s lodgings and sat on his kitchen table. They were brothers.

“Your mother,” Mister Balin said, shaking his head as he bustled around, fetching tweezers, bandages and ointment, “will be beside herself with worry. Whatever were you doing out on the streets by yourself?”

“I had to go,” Fíli said, rolling up his trouser leg. His knee was swollen and bloody. Mister Balin clucked his tongue and moved it. Fíli hissed a little with pain, but got a grim smile in return.

“Twisted,” Balin said. “But not broken - go _where_ , may I ask?”

The boy only bit his lip and looked down, bedraggled hair falling into his face. Balin sighed heavily and set about cleaning the scrapes in his knee, removing bits of grit that had gotten stuck.

“We only have a little house,” Fíli said softly, fingers gripping the table as tightly as he could to distract himself from the pain.

Balin looked up, his dark eyebrows furrowed, then his expression cleared. He did not say anything at first, concentrating on mending his little cousin’s injuries. When he did speak his voice was light, conversational. “Did I ever tell you about the night Mister Dwalin came into the world?”

Fíli looked up, wonderingly. “What d’you mean?” he asked. “When...when Mister Dwalin was a _baby?_ He wasn’t. Mister Bofur says, he sprung up out o’the ground with his axes.”

A not entirely approving sound came out of Mister Balin’s throat, but he smiled and gave Fíli a wink, “Well, then, this is little-known news. Take it from me that Mister Dwalin was born in the same way as every other dwarfling. And was just as small when I met him. Just as small as Missus Thyra’s little Varla. And I was only a little older than you are now - ten years older, to be exact.”

The hands that had been gripping the table slackened. This was far more distracting talk than anything Fíli had yet heard. “What was he like?” Fíli asked.

“Oh, like most babes you see about,” Balin replied easily. “Couldn’t open his eyes for very long, he had a face like a cabbage and, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t very fond of him, at first.”

“You wasn’t?” Fíli asked, mouth open in an ‘o’ of shock. “Why? What’d he do?”

“It was nothing he’d done,” Balin said, shaking out a few drops of a potion to clean the wound and balm to soothe the pain. “But I’d been on my own for some time. I rather enjoyed it that way, having my mother and father all to myself. And you do know - now, this is a secret because it’s rather a silly thing I thought. Can I trust you to keep it in confidence?”

“Oh, aye,” Fíli said, laying his fist over his heart. “I won’t tell no one, Mister Balin.”

“Good,” he smiled, holding a cloth to the wound to staunch the flow of blood. “Well, it’s as I said, it was _very_ silly, I won’t blame you for laughing at me. But I somehow got it in my head that my parents wouldn’t love me as much as they had before once Dwalin was born. He was new, you see, and they’d known me for quite some time. I thought they might forget about me.”

Fíli cocked his head to the side and bit his lip. “That don’t sound silly at all.”

Balin patted his hair and smiled, “Thank you for being understanding. But, in the end, it was rather. My parents didn’t forget about me at all, nor did they lose a jot of love for me. Took me a few days to come round to the idea of Dwalin, but...he turned out to be quite the blessing. For all of us.”

“But he was your Mam and Da’s and so was you,” Fíli pointed out as Balin gently removed the cloth from his leg to check that the blood was beginning to clot. “They had to love you both the same.”

“We’re not just our parents’ children,” Balin replied and seemed about to say more, but before he could continue the door to the room banged open so hard that Fíli was sure the handle must have been embedded in the stone.

“Balin!” Dwalin bellowed, entirely unnecessary in such a small space. “Fíli’s - ”

“Right here,” Balin interrupted, tying a neat knot over the bindings on his leg. “Safe and sound.”

Dwalin seemed to want to check for himself. To do so, he picked Fíli straight up off the table and folded him into his arms, then held him straight out, legs dangling high above the floor. “Don’t you ever do that _again_ , do you hear me, lad? Scared everyone half to death, you did! Your Ma is going to - ”

“Fíli!” Dís ran in and grabbed him out of Mister Dwalin’s arms and tugged him into her own. She covered his face in kisses until he squirmed to try and get away. “What were you...never again, you understand? You don’t leave my sight again!”

Fíli looked up at his mother’s face, feeling guilt curl hot and slimy in his belly. He’d only seen her look so scared once. The night when the wargs came, when she shouted at his uncle to run and Dwalin had gone chasing after him. She held him and Kíli in her lap all night long, staring out the window even though the rest of the street had closed theirs. He could see, the moon was big and bright in the sky. Bright as daylight.

She told him then, about Uncle Thorin. About how he was injured and when the moon was big he turned from a dwarf to a wolf and then back again by morning. How they loved him and had to keep him safe. How, when he and Mister Dwalin came back, Uncle would be very tired, but when he was awake, they ought to tell him how much they loved him. Because he forgot sometimes. Because he felt sad, so sad, he couldn’t think of any good thoughts, just bad ones.

 _And we mustn’t let him think that way for long,_ she said. _We must always find away to bring him back. No one leaves, do you understand, my loves? We stay together. Always._

Fíli had failed, failed himself. He stopped thinking good thoughts and only had bad ones. He put his arms around his mother’s neck and cried hard, like a baby, into her shoulder. She picked him up, awkwardly with her belly in the way, but she still did it. Then she carried him over to a chair and sat him in her lap, rocking him like he was tiny.

“Shh,” she whispered, kissing his hair. “Shh. I’ve got you. You’re alright. Why did you run, love? Where were you going?”

“I don’t know,” Fíli sniffled and wiped his nose on her shoulder. “Mister Bifur’s. Maybe. ‘Cos, I thought you an’ Mister Dwalin...I don’t look nothing like none o’you. And so we can’t...I couldn’t be in the family.”

“Oh, _Fíli_ ,” she whispered and Fíli was stunned to see tears in her eyes. Mam never cried; he wasn’t sure she knew how. “No, no, no...you...are my first baby. And one of the handsomest little lads I’ve ever seen. Looks don’t make a family! And do you know who you look like, anyway?”

“My adad,” he replied immediately. Everyone said so.

“Aye, that’s so,” she nodded. “And thank the Maker for it, for your father was _handsome._ But you also look like my mother.”

He peered up at her, questioningly. Mam never really talked about her mother, only in passing. He had no portrait of her. He did not know what she looked like.

“She was very beautiful,” Dís said, carding her fingers through his hair, tracing the fluffy whiskers on his cheek. “She had long, golden hair and a long beard, soft and shining. And blue eyes, just like you. Just like me. Just like Uncle and just like Mister Balin. And there’s two! Mister Balin and Mister Dwalin, brothers both, and they don’t look a thing alike. Any more than Mister Bombur or Mister Bofur. Or Mister Bofur and your Da.”

“But…” Fíli was confused, or thought his mother might be. “Mister Bofur and Da was cousins.”

Dís shook her head. “Cousins by blood, but brothers in all the ways that matter. Just as close as you and Kíli. In age and in temper - closer! They used to finish each other’s sentences. So you see? Family...it’s what you make of it, sometimes. Those you love, who love you back. And we all love you so much.”

The tears in Dís’s eyes spilled over and she picked Fíli up and held him close, as if she truly never wanted him to go away from her. “I would _never_ send you away. Not for all the gold in the world. Not for anything. Not if there was a knife to my throat. You are my son, my first son and I will _always_ love you. Do you believe me?”

Mam’s arms were shaking. Fíli couldn’t believe it. His mother was big and strong, the tallest dwarrowdam he’d ever seen with arms so big around he couldn’t make his fingers touch when he grabbed hold of her wrist one-handed. He must have really frightened her.

“I love you too,” Fíli sniffed, hugging his mother again. “I believe you. I’m sorry I run away.”

“Never do it again,” she said. It was as much an order as it was a plea.

“Never. Promise. I promise,” he swore, feeling so _terrible_ that he made his mother cry. She must love him as much as she said she did to cry so over him. And she must never mean for him to leave, judging by how hard she was holding him to her. Fíli couldn’t even place his hand on his heart, he didn’t want to stop holding her. “I’m sorry, Ama. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she kissed him and some of the shaking subsided. “You’re safe, that’s most important. Let’s go now, let’s go back to the house, hmm? And _stay_ there.”

Uncle Thorin was waiting for them just outside the building with Kíli in his arms. Kíli toppled forward, falling on top of his brother the moment he emerged by his mother’s side. Their uncle picked _both_ lads up and held them to him, muttering grateful prayers as he kissed Fíli’s brow.

“Smelled the blood,” Dwalin muttered to Balin, his voice half a whisper. “Panicked.”

Balin nodded silently, staring at Thorin thoughtfully. Dís didn’t give him much time to think for she bent down to hug and kiss him, thanking him tearfully for finding Fíli and setting him to rights.

“Of course, lass,” he said, rubbing a hand over her back. “Of course. No need to thank me. Don’t cry, now, it’s all come out alright, hasn’t it?”

“Has it?” Dwalin muttered, folding his arms over his chest. He turned away from Balin when Dís kissed and released him, then put an arm around her waist, holding her tucked up against him until she turned back to look at Balin.

“Come to supper?” she burst out. “It’s not much - Thorin made it - ”

“Hey, now,” her brother said with a tight smile. Fíli still smelled of blood and the street, it set him on edge. “Give me a little credit.”

“You’ll have to take your chances,” she said. “But come? We’ve not seen you in ages.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Balin made his reply. Dwarves were not meant to be on their own for two long. Solitude suited them ill.

“That sounds...like a risk well worth taking,” he replied, ignoring the surprised sound Dwalin made and the startled, pleased expression on Thorin’s face. He put Kíli down, but carried Fíli so that he would not have to walk through the village on a bad leg.

When they reached the artisan’s dwellings and entered the building, they found much of the corridor impassable, due to a number of crates, chests, and pieces of furniture littered about.

“Next-door’s moving,” Dís said as she squeezed past a clothespress. “Further north - family of jewelers, rumor has it there’s a deposit of rubies found that need cutting.”

“I’ll miss Fryr,” Kíli said, taking Balin’s hand to guide him through the labyrinth. “But I s’pose it works out, me getting a wee brother or sister to replace him!”

“They’re leaving the cot behind,” Dís added distractedly. “Said it’s too much trouble to carry and they don’t know if they’re having more. They’ll leave it for us when they move out, I gave Kíli’s to Hervor and Gimli’s still little enough to make good use of it.”

“Anyone taken the place, yet?” Balin asked.

“Not that I know of,” Dís replied, then stopped with the key in the lock, turning slowly toward Balin. “Why? Know anyone who’d be interested?”

“I might at that,” Balin replied, looking appraisingly down the hall. “It’s incredible how much two small rooms can echo.”

Dwalin looked so shocked you could have knocked him over with a feather. “What’s this, then?” he asked, trying to sound affronted and not pleased. “What about...about _timing?”_

Dís opened the door to the welcome aroma of fresh bread and slightly-overdone onions. She went inside with the boys, taking Fíli from Thorin’s arms. Thorin remained leaning against the doorjamb, watching the interchange between the brothers with interested eyes.

“Timing…” Balin took in a breath and released it. “Well. My timing was not the best either. I ought to have wished you joy straight away. I apologize for what I said.”

“No need,” Thorin said shortly before Dwalin could answer. “You were right.”

“Then I apologize for the way I said it,” Balin replied, running a hand through his hair. “I worry about you. All of you. Let’s be honest, I think I have just cause for all of that. At least living closer, I’ll be able to keep a better eye on you all.”

A muscle in Thorin’s jaw tightened, but Dwalin laughed and the sound of his friend’s mirth alleviated some of Thorin’s tension. “You haven’t missed us, then? Not a bit?”

“I’ll own a ‘bit,’” Balin smiled. “And closer proximity means I’ll be on hand, if you need an extra set about in days to come - ”

“You’re pleased,” Dwalin interrupted him smugly. “You are pleased, aren’t you? Or will you own a bit, again?”

“I haven’t been an uncle before,” Balin shrugged. “It’ll be a new experience.”

Thorin laughed this time, briefly. “Haven’t you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Well, I suppose you’re that and more - come in, then, I’ll speak to the landlord on the morrow.”

* * *

 

Glóin did not think it was an overstatement to say that he was one of the most hated dwarves in the Ered Luin, at least amongst those he was required, by blood and circumstance, to call family. Not that he regretted the fact. Not really. Better to be hated and right than loved and wrong. Right?

The fact of the matter was, Glóin was sensible. That was the trouble, for his family and assorted friends seemed to hate sense. As a rule. One might assume they had a vendetta against all that was sensible.

Take Thorin, for instance. They had seen with their own eyes what the accursed monsters of Moria had done to their troops at Azanulbizar. Slaughtered them - more than slaughtered. Decimated. Yet they lived alongside him and called him ‘king,’ as if his claim was not despoiled. And he moved amongst them with such ease, as if their lives were not hanging by a single thread of secrecy that would be so _easy_ to sever.

Against all the rules of sense, his young cousin kept him in her household, alongside her children as if he was something harmless. Like a sheepdog Men used for herding.

Didn’t they have _eyes?_

Glóin saw, the first time Thorin emerged from his tent a month after the battle. Maybe no one else noticed, or pretended not to notice, but he didn’t look like himself. Drawn up tense, nostrils flaring, eyes darting, like a wild thing they’d captured and not a prince. It was impossible to hide and Glóin was amazed that his terrible secret had gone undiscovered.

Honestly, a king who always wore his hair loose and nearly unornamented, with clasps of steel and not silver? Who lived in gloves? Whose reactions were always half a moment too quick, whose strength was unparalleled?

Thorin was a lie. As far as Glóin was concerned, he lost both his cousins on the battlefield that day. He did not know who this new creature was, who wore Thorin’s skin, ill-fitting as it was. He did not care to find out.

But he would not expose him. To expose Thorin for what he was would put them all at risk for being run out of town for seeking refuge under false pretenses, a monster as their sovereign. The longer they stayed, the more impossible it became to even think of removing the wool from everyone’s eyes.

He had them all fooled, Glóin thought privately. His father, his mother, his brother, his father-in-law. His cousins. His _wife,_ for Hervor did not know. One of them had to keep his head. To have sense.

So when Thorin greeted him, spoke to him, got near him, Glóin closed himself off. Gave short answers, got away as quickly as he could. Wouldn’t touch him. Looked at his gloved hands, tried to see the strange ears hidden behind his hair and took to wearing silver rings himself just to ward him off. It would be so easy to pretend that he only spoke to his cousin as he always had been and Glóin would not let him fall for it. He’d lost Thorin once before and he would not pretend he had him back only to lose him again when the facade became too much to maintain.

As it shortly would, no doubt. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, Dís and Dwalin had to ignore all the rules of propriety and dally about together. He could not begrudge them that, he supposed. Life was hard and comfort taken from where it could be found. But they ought to have been more _careful._

Balin, once, had agreed with him. When Dwalin moved out, aping the pretentions of husband and wife (naturally they were not married, he was sure he was the only one they would trust to draw up the marriage license and he would _refuse_ if asked), he visited several times. And when the unfortunate situation was brought up, Balin would sigh and pass a hand through his hair. Miserable. Exasperated. Sensible.

But that was gone now. Evidently he could only hold out against the instability in their family’s line for so long. He’d taken the rooms next door when they went up for sale and the last Glóin heard, they had commissioned a mason to construct a pass-through from one apartment to the other.

Bofur told him that, going on two months ago. The last time he’d spoken to the miner. He’d rather put his foot in his mouth without meaning to.

“Good idea, eh?” Bofur chatted outside the fishmonger’s. He had just been to see Dís and the lads. He assumed Glóin was staying away due to circumstances beyond his control, not choice. Evidently Hervor was fond of making excuses for him when he was not where her friends thought he ought to be. “Nice, big flat for the wee ones to roam, and Balin don’t have to live on his own! Exciting, eh? Can’t wait to meet the little babe, couldn’t be happier for ‘em.”

“I don’t see why you should be,” he said, rather more nastily than he intended, but his nerves were frayed and Bofur, as usual, never shut up. “As it’s your cousin’s memory they’re dishonoring.”

Immediately, Glóin realized he’d spoken out of turn. The change that came over Bofur was instantaneous and startling. His perpetually upturned mouth frowned. His clear brow furrowed and, for the first time in the decades Glóin had known him, he fell silent.

“I aim to forgive you for that,” he said when he found his voice again. “For you don’t know who you’re nattering about. You don’t do him no credit.”

“Who?” Glóin asked. Bofur’s fists were clenched. There was strength in those wiry arms and he found himself automatically bracing for a blow.

It never landed. Or, not in the manner he anticipated.

“Víli,” Bofur replied. “You don’t give him no credit. D’you...you think if he had any say-so, Dís’d be spending her days a-weeping and a-moaning over him? Not a chance. I couldn’t be happier for her. Partly ‘cos I know her for a diamond lass and as good a mam as ever you’ll find. And partly ‘cos I know he’d be happy for her too. You got no right to talk on dishonor; you don’t know nothing about it.”  
  
Óin was even more useless to talk to than Bofur. Not that Glóin was surprised; he and his brother had very different ideas about proper comportment around widowed dwarrowdams. And, in his innermost heart, Glóin thought that Óin was damned lucky that Ori took after his mother in every respect; otherwise this shame might have been visited upon their family earlier.  
  
And his wife? In many respects, she was the worst of all.  
  
She came home on the wind one night, a gust that howled outside even through thick stone. She was still trailing snow all over the floor when she got inside.

“Just been to see Dís,” Hervor announced briskly, dropping a sleeping Gimli in his cot, removing his boots, hat, coat and mittens with her back to her husband. “She’s doing marvelous well - big as a house, but then, we all are in the end, aren’t we? She and Thyra bear carrying children in the pleasantest way I ever saw, Dís never stops working and Thyra doesn’t stop smiling.”

“Hervor - ”

“I told her I’d cook a few meals for them, you’ll be on your own,” she continued, folding Gimli’s clothes before placing them in the dresser drawers. “Unless you want to come down and sup with the lot of us, they’ve got room now, very well done renting the next flat over. But if you’d rather eat all by your lonesome, that’s your decision.”

“Hervor.”

“Kíli’s thrilled to bits, of course,” she cast a brilliant smile at him. “Fíli’s a bit quieter, but I think he’s come round, carved the bonniest picture of a horse on a piece of scrap wood - with Bifur’s aid, but he traced it well. Progress! He was worried, you see, he thought that they’d not have room enough for all of them! But, it’s as I said, renting the next suite of rooms was the perfect solution, I wonder if the landlord would let them knock the wall down - ”

 _“Hervor!”_ She stopped speaking and turned around, arms folded, tapping her foot impatiently. Glóin glared up at her and said, “I don’t want you going over there when the time comes.”

Fury flashed in his wife’s eyes, but she smothered the look quickly. Instead of raging at him, Hervor ‘tsked’ and went on, “It’s a good job I can’t bear throwing anything away. There are a few of Gimli’s things that haven’t been destroyed, they’ll get good use out of them. If only I could knit! Can’t have too many baby caps, can you?”

Glóin took a long drag on his pipe and blew the smoke out in a gust. “Are you listening to me?”

“I can hear you,” Hervor replied, opening the chest at the end of their bed and sorting through its contents. “But no, I’m not listening as you’re speaking nonsense. I’ve been looking after that lass since she was thirty-five years old, I love her like my own sister and your stupid grudge isn’t going to keep me away while she’s laboring. I know you miss Frerin - ”

“Frerin?” Glóin interrupted, pipe dangling from his fingers, forgotten. “What’s _Frerin_ got to do with anything?”

Hervor crossed the room and stood over him. Strangely, her tone was compassionate.

“I miss Heidrek too, you know,” she said, lips pursed. “Every day I do. But it wasn’t Thorin’s fault. Or Thrór’s fault, even if he led the charge. Warriors die during wartime, it’s the way of it.”

“I know that,” Glóin replied, offended. “Do I look like a child who needs to be told?”

“You act like one, sure enough,” Hervor shot back. “Don’t deny it. Thorin’s cordial as can be to you and family besides, but you hardly look at him, nevermind speaking to him! It’s gone on long enough.”

“It’s naught to do with Frerin!” Glóin shouted, then cursed himself. Vigg got up early and was sleeping in the next room, he’d box his ears if his son-in-law woke him by bellowing. “By the Maker, you think - you think all this time I’ve been… _blaming_ Thorin for Frerin dying?”

“Why else would you scorn him the way you do?” Hervor asked, her own voice rising in frustration. “There’s no _reason_ for it, as Thorin’s not done aught to you that I know of - ”

“You don’t know Thorin as well as you think you do,” Glóin huffed. He tried to go back to smoking, but his pipe had burnt itself out. Irate, he rose and tapped it so hard on the mantle that the bowl smashed to bits. “S’hands! Ach, you don’t know what’s he’s done or what he is - ”

“Enlighten me, then,” Hervor hissed in his ear. “And keep your voice down, you’ll wake Gimli - or Adad and I don’t know who’ll throw the worse fit!”

“He’s...he’s…” Glóin physically bit his tongue. It would be so easy to tell all. Just a matter of tripping the words off, shattering a long-held secret. But he’d made a vow. A solemn vow. Not to tell. Their lives were held by a string. One wrong move, one ill-timed confession, one mistake and down they tumbled. “Mad. He’s mad.”

Hervor laughed in his face, a bitter, harsh sound that grated his ears and he crossed the room to get away from her.

“Mad?” she repeated incredulously. “You sound like one of those nasty gossips in the marketplace! Melancholy, I’ll grant you, but if you call that madness, then I suppose we all are, sometimes.”

“You don’t understand,” Glóin growled. “Just _trust_ me and keep away. Otherwise you’ll fall into it too, they’ll talk about you and I the same way they talk about Dís and Thorin! They’ll talk about _Gimli.”_

If Glóin hoped that the necessity of safeguarding their son’s reputation would move his wife’s heart, he found her as solid in her convictions as a mountain.

“I don’t care, let them talk!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air in a passionate rage. “I’m not raising a son who can’t hear others’ wickedness without hanging his head down in shame. I want Gimli to be brave in every way. Not just with sword and axe, but in the ways that really matter. Loyalty to family and friends and those you love. I love Dís and I love Thorin and those lads and all my kin and my friends. And if you want me to stay away because of ugly whispers and mean-spiritedness, then you’re not the brave dwarf I once took you for.”

Hervor marched off for bed, but turned back to tell her husband one more thing, “I’m going to stay by Dís when she has her new babe and I’m going to kiss her and Dwalin and the child. And you’ll be there if you’re half as good-hearted as I think you are.”

Two weeks later, Glóin was presented with the chance to show his wife how good-hearted he was. And found himself failing her.

Mid-morning, Dís sent for his mother. Dwalin came running and nearly battered the door down knocking. Maeva and Óin both went to see to her, bringing their black leather bags and a change of clothes. Third babies were usually fairly quick-coming, but it might be days still. Hervor went with them, taking an overnight bag for herself and Gimli.

Glóin went to work and was met with some surprise by the clerks.

“What are you doing here?” Baldur asked, amazed. “Your cousin’s having her babe, haven’t you heard?”

“I’ve heard,” Glóin said, settling in with his ledger and account books.

Baldur blinked at him. “Aren’t you going down the house?”

“No,” Glóin replied. He had the same conversation twenty times before he went home.

_Glóin! No one expected you in, didn’t you know your cousin was having her babe?_

_Go on! How are you to work on a day like this?_

_Tell the mother and father and all your family I wish them well!_

They were testing him, he decided. Some, at least. To see if he condoned the impropriety. He did not. Glóin worked all day and went home at nightfall to what he assumed would be an empty house. He nearly hurled a knife at the intruder he saw sitting on his couch, only to sheath the blade when he saw it was his father.

Gróin got up, not even blinking in fear and pointed at the door. “Don’t you dare undress, we’re going out again.”

Glóin tried to push past him to get to the larder, but his father held out an arm to stop him.

“We can eat on the way,” he said.

“I’ve nowhere to be.”

“Don’t you start, laddie,” Gróin said warningly. “You are going to walk out that door. You are going to wait in the sitting room at your cousins’. You are going to hold that babe when it comes into the world and you’re going to wish Dís and Dwalin joy and blessings on their child. I didn’t raise a son of mine to be - ”

“What?” Glóin asked, gritting his teeth. “Respectable? I break my back trying to keep up appearances, trying to keep this family’s reputation out of the _mire_ and everyone acts as if I’ve committed some crime! As if _I’m_ the monster, when we all know very well - ”

Gróin held up his hand warningly. “Not another word!”

“Oh, that’s a fine thing!” Glóin scoffed. “Not another word out of me, but Dís and Dwalin can break all the rules of propriety and have blessings showered upon their heads! Thorin...well. They can conduct themselves in their own way, but I don’t have to abide it. I don’t.”

“You do,” Gróin countered, his eyes dark and his jaw set. “Believe me, laddie, you do. They’re family, aren’t they?”

“And if I prefer not to think of them that way?”

For the first time in decades, Glóin was convinced his father was going to take him over his knee again. Gróin had gone very red in the face and his arms were stiff, his hands clenched. Rather than seizing him by his coatfront, he turned and walked the length of the sitting room. Then he came back and gestured to the couch.

“You are going to sit down,” he said with obvious effort in an even, measured tone. “You are going to sit. And I am going to tell you about the two things I’ve done that I’m most ashamed of. And then you’re going to visit your cousins and wish them well. Now _sit.”_

It was his father. In the end, that was what did it. Gróin was his father and Glóin, despite his statement to the contrary, was still tied by some bonds of familial loyalty. So he sat and he listened, though he doubted his father’s words would have any impact on his feelings.

“I didn’t get on with your auntie,” Gróin did not sit, he paced, treading a restless path all around the room, hands tugging his white beard convulsively.

“Aye, Auntie Dísa,” Glóin interrupted impatiently. He’d heard more stories about their rows than he had lays of great battles of yore; his father and his elder sister, Erebor’s queen, were like oil and water and everyone knew it.

“Not Auntie Dísa,” Gróin stopped pacing and looked his son dead in the eyes. “Auntie Dóra.”

“What?” Glóin asked, stunned. Auntie Dóra - Halldóra - was his Uncle Fundin’s wife. Balin and Dwalin’s mother. She would soon be a grandmother if she had survived the desolation of the Worm. But she had not. His loving aunt, all the children’s favorite, generous with play and embraces and songs and praise. The cleverest dwarf in the East. The ‘dam his Uncle mourned until his dying day, he’d shaved his _head_ and cut his beard, never letting it grow out and inking his head with runes and words carved into bare skin to honor her memory. All for love of her. And his father did not _like_ her?

“That’s not true,” Glóin said, shaking his head. “You loved her. Everyone _loved_ her.”

“I didn’t at first,” Gróin said, his eyes gone hard. “In time I saw her as she was. A good lass. Odd, but sweet as sugar. A fine heart, but she and your uncle had a quick courtship. I didn’t like it. I see now they were Made for each other, but I didn’t then. I wanted to put a stop to it. I thought the worst of her and I was cruel to her.”

_“Why?”_

Gróin laughed mirthlessly, passing a hand over his face. “Propriety. Or, what I thought was propriety. I scorned my brother’s sweetheart and managed to chase him off by doing so. All in the name of sparing his heart and saving his reputation. If she’d been conniving, I didn’t want the lad being talked about. I didn’t want anyone calling my brother a fool. Turned out I was the fool all along.”

Glóin did not remember any of this; how could he? His aunt and uncle had been married fifty years by the time he came along, as happy a pair as he’d ever seen. And he’d never known, from his aunt and father’s manner with one another that anything like this had ever passed between them. “What...how’d you mend it?”

“I apologized,” Gróin said. “Swallowed my pride, told the lass I was sorry for what I’d said and done, asked her to forgive me. She did. And I got to know her. I’d been wrong about her all the time.”

“I’m not wrong about Thorin,” Glóin said with conviction. “If that’s what you’re trying to say. I know what he is.”

“And who he is?” his father demanded. “You know _that?_ Because you don’t act like it. That lad works himself to the bone. And you don’t show him any gratitude that I’ve seen.”

“Gratitude!” Glóin almost sprang to his feet, but his father put a hand on his shoulder and sat him back down. “For what? For not _killing_ us all with his - ”

“Hush!” Gróin glared down at him hard and Glóin looked away, scowling. “He’s _good_. He’s proved that over and over for nearly forty years. You owe him your trust and loyalty for that.”

“I’m loyal,” Glóin muttered. “I’ve kept his confidence, haven’t I?”

“You don’t trust him. And you should. But I’m not done, so don’t get up. The way I treated Dóra, that’s the second-most thing I’m ashamed of.”

“What’s the first, then?” Glóin was expecting some anecdote about a dwarf he failed to save in his career as a Healer. Some blather about how every member of their race was sacred.

“The way I treated my sister.”

Those were not the words he expected to hear and, as a consequence, when next his father spoke, he listened.

“We were different, her and I, that was clear from the start,” Gróin’s eyes were gone glazed and far away. Glóin was sure he wasn’t seeing the whitewashed walls of his little suite of rooms, but the gilded corridors of Erebor and the warrior-queen that the people called Dragonslayer and her loved ones called Dísa.

“We were impatient with each other. She was impulsive, I was cautious. I wanted her to _think_ and she wanted me to act. We were less than ten years apart, we grew up together. I was better in school, she was better on the field. I called her stupid, she called me lazy. Our parents didn’t know what to do with us, they’d either force us together to make us get on, or they’d keep us apart.”

Gróin sighed and closed his eyes, remembering, “The only time we agreed on anything was after they died. We had to look after Fundin. We had to do it together. Even then...I saved lives and she called herself a death-dealer. Never happier than when she was on a battlefield or the back of a horse, riding off into the night. I was afraid for her, but I never told her that. Just said she was stupid, she was reckless, she was going to get herself _killed._ She laughed at me. She was never afraid of anything.”

When he opened his eyes, there were tears in them. “I wish we’d spent more time talking and less time sniping at one another. I can count on one hand the number of times I told her I loved her and if she was here, she’d say the same about the number of times she told me.”

He took a deep, steadying breath and went on, very quietly, “Family’s family. You don’t get to pick them, like jewels out of a box. But you’ve got to do right by them. Much as me and Dísa couldn’t understand each other, we loved each other. I _still_ love her and I didn’t get the chance to do right by her, not as I should. She was taken from me. But you’ve got a chance.”

“Like it or not,” Gróin said, louder, holding out a rough hand to take, “all the dwarves crammed in those rooms in that flat are _your_ family. So get your arse up, walk out that door, and treat them like it.”

Glóin took his father’s hand. In silence the two made the walk to Dís and Thorin’s rooms, their path lit by the glow of the full moon overhead.

* * *

 

Too many people. Thorin would have hidden under the bed if he could have gotten away with it, but he was too large a beast for that. He was locked away in Balin’s flat, but he could hear them all, smell them all, the chatter of a dozen excited voices and his sister’s occasional pained shouts over Maeva’s constant praise, “You’re doing so well, darling, just keep on a little longer, you’ll have a darling come dawn!”

Óin was a little less sweet in his bedside manner, “The more strength you waste in screaming, the longer this’ll take. Give Dwalin a solid punch, that’s a better occupation for you.”

“Easier on your ears you mean,” Dís replied, almost laughing. Brave lass. She’d always been so brave.

Thorin growled, deep his his throat. It was absolutely killing him inside that he should be kept away. He’d stood by for Fíli and Kíli’s births. She wanted him there, he had no idea if his presence eased things for her, but he’d been there. And now he could not be. Would not be one of the first to hold the child, to look upon it, to welcome it.

“Poor Thorin,” his ears pricked at the mention of his name. Thyra was sighing somewhere in the pantry. “Ill tonight, of all nights!”

“Probably for the best we stay away,” Irpa said quickly, over the click of knitting needles. “Balin’s got everything well in hand, I’m sure - d’you know, Dori’s just the same when he’s poorly? No one else can make a move if they’ve got a little scrape, he’s got to see it cleaned and bandaged, but he might have a sword through his stomach and he’ll be protesting that it’s _fine_ , really, don’t fuss.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dori replied primly. Then, in a tone that was more worried, “Ori, are you sure you’re not tired? You can meet the baby tomorrow or the next day?”

“No, I want to stay up with Fíli and Kíli,” the lad yawned stubbornly. “The more people greet the baby, the more luck it’ll have! Isn’t that so, Nori?”

“Aye! Good wishes, means good luck.”

“There must have been a thousand folk who hung about for you, young Nori,” Bofur remarked mischievously. “Damned luckiest sod I ever knowed!”

“Doing alright?” Dwalin asked in the room itself. He was trying so hard to sound calm, but Thorin could swear he could hear the thudding of his heart even from far away.

“Aye, well enough,” Dís replied. “Check on th - ”

But whatever she was going to say was lost in a grunt of pain and another round of encouragement from Maeva and chastisement from Óin.

“Mam’ll be alright, won’t she?” Kíli asked, when all was quieter again.

“Just fine,” Hervor reassured him. “Your Mam’s strong as steel. She’ll be up on her feet in no time and with the little one in her arms! With the Maker’s blessings.”

There was a general murmur of prayer which Thorin silently joined, though he could not say the words aloud. He hoped they were heard anyway.

The door of the flat opened as the murmur of voices stopped. In fact, a hush fell over the whole room.

“We haven’t missed anything, I’m sure,” Gróin said. “But the lass’ll have to forgive our tardiness.”

“Aye,” Glóin agreed. “Got held up.”

The thump, Thorin assumed, was the sound of Hervor joyfully attacking her husband in an embrace that landed them both on the floor.

The dawn was creeping across the floor and lighting on the faces of tired, expectant dwarrows before they heard the protesting wails of an infant. Thorin, naked and shivering on the floor of Balin’s room, smiled. Not five minutes later, Balin himself hurried in, sure to lock the door behind him.

“It’s a boy,” he said, getting his hands under Thorin’s shoulders to help him into his own bed. His eyes were wet. “Fattest little thing you’ve ever seen.”

“A boy,” Thorin repeated, his voice hoarse. “Hale?”

“Oh, aye,” Balin was smiling as he pulled the blankets up to Thorin’s chin, tucking them around him as if he was the infant. “I’m sure you heard him through the walls. Dark-haired, ten fingers, ten toes. Bombur's bringing Varla by later, he said he had to see them together. Maeva says she's sure he's as big as she is and she's six months old. Your sister’s just fine. Good, strong lass. I’m not so sure about my brother.”

Thorin chuckled, his voice wheezing like a rusty hinge, “I’ve got faith in him.”

Balin patted Thorin’s head, “That’s a nice word. Rest; I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Whether Thorin ate or rested, he had no idea. The next thing he was aware of was a warm, wonderfully comforting weight beside him. And someone new.

“Had to barrel through ‘em like they were a herd of goblins,” Dwalin said and Thorin raised himself up on against the pillow, struggling to keep his eyes open. Dwalin was beaming, he looked as happy as Thorin had ever seen him and little wonder why. In his massive arms was a tiny, blanket-swathed infant. Despite the minor uproar over his size, he still looked like a delicate thing. With quite a fat face, as Balin said. Thorin thought he looked quite perfect. “Everyone wanted a turn, but Dís said it was only right that you be the first. If you’re up to it.”

“‘Course I am,” Thorin sat up fully. His head swam a little, but he rode the woozy feeling out until he was sure he could manage. Then he held his bare hands out and Dwalin deposited the helpless little thing in his uncle’s steady arms.

Just a little pink face in a white blanket. Eyes swollen shut and a tiny mouth twitching as he slept. There were scratches of dark hair, black or brown, Thorin couldn’t tell on his head and the faintest dusting of the same on his cheeks. Very, very carefully, Thorin touched his face with the pad of his finger.

“Aren’t you fine, eh?” he whispered and grinned up at Dwalin. “Muhudel, nadadel. He’s a lucky fellow to have such a father.”

“And such an uncle,” Dwalin said, resting his forehead against Thorin’s tenderly. They both just stared down at the infant until Dís shuffled in, wrapped in a dressing gown. She looked pale and exhausted and unspeakably happy.

“Did you tell him?” she asked, easing herself onto the bed by Thorin’s feet.

“Tell me what?” he asked.

“You didn’t,” she said, half to herself, but then spoke directly to Thorin. “You’ll find out his Name when everyone else does, but you’ll be the very first to know what we’ve decided to call him in the meantime.”

Thorin sat up a bit straighter. He’d heard a little of Dís and Dwalin’s discussion of the lad’s common name, but not much. He knew they’d thought about something to honor Frerin, which he heartily approved of. It would make sense for them to want to tell him they’d settled on that straight away.

“Thorlin,” Dís smiled.

For a second, Thorin thought his sister was more tired than she was letting on and had stumbled over his own common name. Then it became clear and his mouth fell open in shock.

They’d named their child for _him._ Him, a monster. Degraded. Debased. Not sure if he was worthy of being re-Made and they named their child for him. He did not know what to say.

“He hates it,” Dwalin said, snapping Thorin back into reality.

“He’s mulling it over,” Dís said. “We thought that lads would probably call him ‘Thorli’ which is right. Brothers should have names that sound the same - if they get it in their heads to call him Tho _ri_ I won’t have it. Nori’s not going to think the child’s been named for him.”

“Thank you,” Thorin said, swallowing thickly. “I don’t...I can’t think of anything…”

“That’s fine, no one wants a speech,” Dwalin winked at him. “I’d prefer you didn’t, if it’s all the same to you.”

Thorin smiled weakly, “Well, I ought to abide by your wishes. It’s a special day.”

They were set upon immediately by two sets of running legs with Balin being dragged behind, his fingers hooked in the hoods of their tunics. “Unfortunately your time has run out,” Balin informed them. “You said you would be ten minutes. It has been eleven minutes; they counted.”

“Me first!” Kíli bounded up on the bed beside his mother. “Me first!”

Dís turned to Fíli questioningly, “Want to be generous and let Kíli hold him first?”

Fíli nodded, hands behind his back, “That’s fine. I got something for him anyway I’m holding.”

“Alright, Kíli, sit in Mister Dwalin’s lap if you want to hold your brother,” Dís instructed, then patted the place Kíli vacated on the bed for Fíli to sit next to her, which he did.

Dwalin got his arms beneath Kíli’s for additional support as Thorin lay the sleeping dwarfling in his elder brother’s arms. Kíli was smiling so hard his cheeks looked like they were going to ache soon.

“Good morning,” he whispered to the baby, whose puffy eyes fluttered a little, but did not open. “I’m your big brother - what’s he called, Mam?”

“Thorlin,” she replied and Kíli grinned even wider.

“Thorlin! Good morning, Thorlin. Me Name’s,” he bent his head very close to his brother’s and whispered something so quietly that only Thorin heard him. “But you can call me Kíli when you’re talking a bit. I’ll teach you all them words what you’ll be needing to know. And that’s Fíli. You can’t see him ‘cos your eyes is closed, but he’s your brother too. He’ll teach you all them things what I don’t know.”

“And that’s a lot,” Fíli said, leaning closer to the baby to get a good look at him. His eyes opened up, just little slits, but he could see that they were dark blue.

Kíli’s eyes lit up and he said to Fíli, “He looked right at us! He likes us best!”

“Got you something,” Fíli said to Thorlin, his voice taking on an excited note. In his hand, he held Goose by his worn woolen scruff. “I’ll hang on to him a bit, ‘cos you’re too little for toys. But when you growed up some you can have him for your very own.”

Dís gave Fíli a hug and a kiss, “That’s very generous! What a nice gift for your little brother.”

Fíli smiled at her and looked nervously at Thorin before he turned his attention back to the baby. “Goose is good. He don’t look so all the time, but he’s big and strong. And he’ll protect you. Like we all will. But him most of all.”

With the utmost care, Fíli dipped Goose’s snout down to Thorlin’s forehead and made a little kissing sound with his mouth as the toy’s nose touched his youngest brother’s brow. The baby squirmed a little and fell back to sleep.

“Alright,” Dís said, clearing her throat and hastily wiping her eyes. She arranged Fíli’s arms and Dwalin helped Kíli place the baby in his elder brother’s arms. When Thorlin was settled, Dwalin leaned back against the headboard, snaking an arm around Thorin’s shoulders while Kíli snuggled up between them. It had been a long night and his dark head nodded on his uncle’s chest. Soon he was sleeping as soundly as the infant.

Thorin was tired, but didn’t want to sleep. He watched them all with a contented smile on his face. There would be dark days to come, he was sure. And hard days. But here, he felt the closest he ever had to peace. And he was going to savor the moment for as long as he could.


	6. Chapter 6

There was a remarkable quality new babies had about them, Thorin discovered. No matter how many snide or condescending remarks were made prior to their births, once the child was actually in the world, even the most hard-hearted naysayer’s eyes turned liquid and they managed to bid the parents a cordial good-day if they happened to have the infant in tow with them.

It certainly didn’t hurt matters that Thorli was a cheerful child with an easy-going nature that leant itself well to universal adoration. He rarely fussed or cried much after the first few months of his life. He would be held by absolutely anyone without protest and the second thing strangers remarked on after they finished exclaiming over his size was his temperament.

“Must’ve drunk your fill of honey mead,” they said to Dís with a wink. “For that’s as sweet a babe as ever I’ve seen.”

“What a smile he’s got!” they’d say to Fíli or Kíli, the latter of whom would go out of his way to make his baby brother laugh. “Precious thing.”

“Fine lad you have there,” they’d say to Dwalin, worried they’d overstayed their welcome and not quite meeting his eyes as they scurried away.

Balin found those reactions the best of all.

“I wonder if I ought to make it my business to tell folks exactly which of his parents the good humor comes from,” he whispered to Thorin one night as a young ‘dam stopped trying to sneak a peek at Thorlin’s face the moment Dwalin’s shadow fell over her. “My parents always said there was no merrier babe beneath the earth than yon mountain over there.”

“My mother always said, I was such a disappointment,” Thorin nodded, smiling cautiously back at Balin, as they were in public at the time. “Dwalin was the only baby she knew before I came along, she said it was quite a shock to her that I actually cried.”

Wee Thorli was plump and cheerful and everyone adored him. The years following his birth could almost be described as blissful. Their family was never lavishly wealthy, but they did well enough that they never felt the sting of deprivation as they had when his brothers were infants. Those same brothers, like their older kinfolk, seemed determined to make Thorli’s life as happy as possible.

Kíli especially went out of his way to be helpful, fetching new clothes or linens when the old ones were soiled, holding his little brother at every possible opportunity and cheerfully spooning soft foods into his mouth when he was a little older, no matter how often Thorli spit them back out or made a mess of the two of them. Having been the youngest for so long, Kíli jumped into his new role of elder brother with both feet. He soaked up the praise at his helpfulness like a determined sponge and made himself useful when visitors came to call, telling them how Thorli liked to be held and what his favorite songs were and which toys he liked best. Kíli also enjoyed bragging about who Thorlin’s favorite brother was - himself, naturally.

Fíli, though no less affectionate, was far less interested in acting as caretaker than Kíli. He would play with Thorli, quite happily too, but when it came to minding him, he was content to let the adults around him see to the baby’s needs. He would hold him when he was dry and fed and awake, or sit beside him on the hearth rug and tell him stories, dangling toys just within reach of his hands.

With two such attentive elder brothers, the neighbors remarked teasingly, Dís and Dwalin scarcely had to be there!

Of course, they were. Dís seemed overjoyed to have an infant in the house again and Dwalin was every bit the doting father that Thorin knew he’d be. After helping with Fíli and Kíli’s care for so long, he knew his best and dearest friend could hardly do badly with a son of his own flesh and blood after acting as almost-father to the lads since they were tiny. The villagers of the Ered Luin might see a dwarf made up of granite and steel when they looked at Dwalin, but his kin knew him rather better than that; the fellow had a heart as soft and squishy as a ball of cotton and he just about melted the first time Thorli smiled at him.

He had his own way with the lad, his own manner of soothing and comforting him. Dís (and Thorin, admittedly) sang to the little fellow to put him to sleep of a night. Dwalin didn’t have much of a voice, but more than once, Thorin lay awake in bed, listening to Dwalin pace the sitting room floor, the baby in his arms, as he recited an epic in verse.

Some nights, it wasn’t Thorlin alone who benefitted from Dwalin’s stories.

Everything was going so well, Thorin did not want to disrupt the peace that settled upon the household, but full moon nights were getting worse, not better, as time went on.

Physically, they were always exhausting, but he had been plagued by nightmares in his cursed form that made him wake, clawing at the floor and biting at the air. Not the usual half-memories of slaughter and the firey sun. These were not dreams such as he had ever experienced before, of dark places he had never been and of a voice speaking in a tongue he had never heard, save in snarled snatches on the battlefield.

Growls and howls answered the Black Speech in his mind, a crude mockery of an army’s warcries. Thorin cringed away from the sound, wanting to cover his ears, but he had no hands with which to do it. When he woke, his throat was sore.

One night it was particularly bad. Craggy peaks rose in his mind’s eye, a ruined castle, its walls crumpling, the scent of the place wet and oppressive with moss and decay. He could feel the cold stone beneath his paws and heard a press of bodies, snarling and shuffling about around him. Then, fire in the sky - not fire. An eye, blazing, orange and red and black. The sight startled him into wakefulness. It took him a minute to realize he was on the floor of his room, panting as if he’d been running a great distance, bedding all but destroyed and his mouth tasted of his own blood.

There was a light burning under the door, from a lamp kept burning on the kitchen table. And Dwalin’s voice, grounding him in the moment, promising safety. Dwalin meant safety.

“ **-if I would shrink from battle now, a coward.  
** Nor does that spirit urge me on that way.  
I’ve learned it all too well. To stand up bravely,  
always to fight in the front ranks of our soldiers,  
winning my father great glory, glory for myself.  
For in my heart and soul I know this well;  
the day will come when our sacred city must die,  
my father must die and all his people with him,  
my father who hurls the strong steel spear…”

Dwalin stopped reciting when he heard scratching at Thorin’s door. Curious he walked over and tried the handle. It wasn’t locked and the door opened easily. Thorin padded out and stood uncertainly on the threshold of the kitchen, eyes trained on Thorlin as if afraid the child would sense him and cry.

Dwalin didn’t act as if anything at all was unusual. “Lonesome?” he asked, standing back so Thorin could pass. “Come along then, he’s nearly asleep anyway.”

He settled himself down in an armchair and Thorin sat beside him. The baby was curled up in a blanket, asleep, sucking on his balled fist. Thorin watched the child for a long while, until one of Dwalin’s hands found its way to the back of his neck and he lowered his head, either in shame or exhaustion, he could not say. Perhaps it was neither of them. Perhaps it was fear.

* * *

 

Some children changed as they aged. Kíli spent most of the first four years of his life asleep, or so it seemed. Now he was a bundle of energy, rising with the sun and only sleeping when the very last drop of fun had been wrung out of the day. Fíli had always been rather a portly little fellow for his first few years, but he was growing into a lanky sort, not a spare ounce on him no matter how much he ate. Probably because he spent so much time running after Kíli.

Thorli was not so changeable. He was an easy-going baby who grew into a sweet-tempered toddler who, unlike his boisterous brothers, was almost worryingly quiet. When he was five years old and not talking Dís started to get a bit anxious, until Balin reassured her that Dwalin was exactly the same when he was an infant.

“I’ll bet you a guinea he doesn’t see the need,” Balin said one day as Fíli and Kíli played hide and seek with Thorlin toddling along after them, always taking the same spot behind Thorin’s chair (Kíli walked him over and placed him behind it before he ran off to find a better spot). “With those two jabbering on all day, what’s left to say? I did all of Dwalin’s talking for him until he was nearly six.”

Thorli was exactly six when he started saying more than ‘Ama’ and ‘Ada.’ Unsurprisingly, his first word (when reaching up for a piece of bread before supper) was, ‘Please.’

It had to be said, however, that sometimes his desire to be of use competed with his sense of good manners.

It had been a rough night followed by a rougher morning. Thorlin’s sinews ached as he hauled himself into bed, sheets pooling around his waist; he did not care to cover himself in blankets, he only wanted to sleep. Dís poked her head in the doorway after knocking. He wished she’d just barged in, the sound hurt his head.

“Breakfast?” she asked softly, seeing him cringe.

Thorin shook his head and turned his face away. “Later,” he said, his voice thin and brittle as ice.

She drew back, with a nod; his hearing was so sensitive he fancied he could hear the wind she stirred up in her wake. And he certainly did not miss the pitter-patter of stocking feet padding across the floor.

Much better Thorlin than either Fíli or Kíli, Thorin reflected ruefully. At least the littlest one among them knew how to speak in a whisper. He knew he was not to enter his uncle’s room when the door was closed, but evidently leaving it open the tiniest crack was enough to make that rule fall by the wayside.

“Uncle sick?” he asked in a very worried voice, hoisting him up with his hands gripping the edge of Thorin’s mattress for support. He stood on the very tips of his toes and, to Thorin’s relief, spoke very, very quietly.

“I’m alright,” Thorin said, reaching out and gently patting the little fellow’s head. “Just tired.”

“Oh.” Thorli rocked back down on his heels, hands folding behind his back. He swung his hips around indecisively and bit his lip as he pondered what to do. Thorin closed his eyes, assuming that he was going to be left in peace, but a moment later, he felt Thorli clambering up onto the bed, tugging the quilt folded at the bottom with all his might.

“What are you doing?” Thorin asked, holding a hand out, just in case he lost his balance and slipped.

“Tuck you in,” Thorli explained, pulling the blankets up to Thorin’s waist and unfolding them as best he could to lay them down on his chest. “So you sleep and not be tired. Or cold. You got no shirt.”

Pudgy hands smoothed the quilt over Thorin’s chest. Thorli had to sit upon his uncle stomach to do a thorough job and Thorin did not try to remove him, despite being tired, despite the child being too much and too close. It was worth it for the hopeful smile that was beamed his way when he finished.

“Comfy?” Thorli asked, patting his chest with the utmost care.

“Very much so,” Thorin nodded. “Thank you.”

Dwalin came in then, hauling Thorli up over his shoulder, making him giggle. That sound was less welcome than the quiet concern to Thorin’s ears, but it did his heart good to hear it.

They hadn’t yet told Thorli what Thorin was. Aside from that night when he was an infant, when Thorin sought companionship out of fear, he had never been in the child’s presence in his cursed state. Like the rest of the village, Thorli thought his uncle got sick sometimes. Like his brothers before him, he’d been taught never to enter Thorin’s room when the door was closed.

They decided - he, Dís, Dwalin, and Balin - that it could wait until Thorli was in his twenties. Around the time when Fíli and Kíli discovered him, that awful winter night. Then they could be assured that he could understand the need for secrecy. They could explain it to him, if they waited, they hoped that Thorli would not have to see his uncle as his brothers had; teeth bared, claws sharp, awash in blood.

The years past and Thorli grew from a chubby, cheerful, loving toddler, into a stocky, cheerful, loving little boy. It was around this time that Balin started confiding to Dís that he had been mistaken in who Thorlin most took after in the family. Fíli and Kíli were beginning their education in the art of war and he was happy to tag along and watch.

When he was still a babe, it was Dwalin who he predicted the child would grow up to emulate, but though Dwalin had ever been a sweet little fellow, he was rambunctiousness itself. Privately, Balin thought, that with his kindly nature and tendency toward quiet thoughtfulness that bordered on shyness, Thorli was more like his other uncle than his father. When he was the same age, Dwalin made himself a right pest in the practice arena, always asking to be allowed to do more than he was permitted, to wield blades he was far too young for, to take on lads older than himself and more skilled by far, just to prove that he could.

Thorin only seemed happy to be there. He would sit off to the side as he was bid, taking it all in with wide eyes and an eager, upturned face. He would patiently get up from his bench to drag Dwalin to sit beside him, hand around the back of the belt of his tunic, bidding him to wait, they’d get their turn ere long.

Sometimes when Balin joined the training or simply came to watch, he’d let his eyes linger on his nephew for a beat, a wistful smile playing around his mouth.

One spring afternoon, Dwalin was drilling the lads on stance and grip with weighted wooden practice blades. Bilfur and Catla, Bombur’s eldest two, were allowed to join in the training. Ori (as per his brother’s instructions) was to sit and observe, but not to take part in any war games - not ‘til he was fully forty years of age and he was just shy of that milestone. Once Dori was out of earshot, Dwalin hauled the little fellow onto his feet and told him to stand and imitate the others, even if he wasn’t allowed to actually have anything in his hands that could be used to injure someone else - or himself.

Gimli was watching as well, fairly champing at the bit to join in on the fun, but he was too young still to practice. He hadn’t the patience for it, nor the attention span. He and Alfur, Bombur’s middle son, instead decided to “help” Mister Dwalin in his coaching, standing on the sidelines, bouncing on the balls of their feet and jeering whenever one of the older children made a mistake.

That _was_ their occupation until Thorin, also observing, told them that if they hadn’t anything nice to say, they ought to hold their tongues or clear off and find something else to do to occupy themselves.

Varla and Thorli sat in the grass, playing quietly together. They braided long strands of straw into makeshift golden bracelets and budged up to make room for Gimli and Alfur to join them, when Thorin finally got tired of their cheek and ordered them away.

Ordinarily, Thorin might have had more patience with the lads, but it was a full moon night and he was on edge. A sensation which was not helped when a missive arrived from the Iron Hills.

Correspondence from the East came regularly enough that Thorin was not immediately put on guard by the receipt of the letter, but its contents made his skin crawl.

It was from Dáin, concerning attacks upon the Mountains and surrounding villages of Men by the same monstrous wolf-creatures that glutted themselves on the blood of the slain at Dimrill Dale.

 **The threat of the monsters grows daily,** the letter concluded ominously, a departure from Dáin’s usual, light-hearted tone. **I hope this warning to you has been given without cause, but I fear it cannot be so. Stay on your guard. I know you and yours will show the creatures no mercy. Any magic that produced those creatures must be a pestilential evil.**

**One of our warriors was bitten. He was later found slain by his own hand in his rooms. I grieve for him, but I cannot say I blame him. Better noble death than to lose oneself to such wickedness.**

He left the training field abruptly and shut himself in his room that night. His nephews asked, through the lock, if he would play with them. Dís knocked on his door to call him to supper. Dwalin demanded to know why he’d gone off in such a hurry that afternoon. Balin politely inquired whether or not he might look at Dáin’s letter. And Thorin ignored every last one of them.

Sick to his stomach, he left the letter on his clothes press and did not show its contents to anyone. That night Thorin dreamt of death. Not for the first time, but it was not a dream he had ever experienced before.

It was raining. It soaked him to the skin, despite his thick fur covering. All around him were warriors and creatures like himself, attacking. Howls and warcries split the night.

Thorin, who had never run from a battle in all his life, tried to escape. Yet everywhere he turned, there were bodies. Twisted strangers who he had never known and beastial corpses, torn over, hot viscera spilling onto the soaking ground. A flash of a sword caught his eye and before he could stop himself, he lashed out.

The warrior fell, Thorin’s teeth clamped around his neck. In the struggle, he was unhelmed. And when he dropped the body, Thorin saw his own face staring up at him.

He came back into consciousness with a jolt; his limbs felt like they were on fire and his mouth tasted of blood, his own blood and he swallowed it down, gritting his teeth against the metallic tang of it, forcing his eyes open to bring himself fully into wakefulness. If he allowed himself to sleep again, he knew he’d fall right back into the terrible nightmare - but the sight that greeted him when he opened his eyes made him wish that he was still within the depths of slumber, however terrible that sleep might have been.

It was Thorlin, huddled against the wall in his night things. The child was curled into a tiny ball and he was sobbing, silently. Terrified beyond sound.

Thorin felt his heart skip a beat. _How?_ he wondered desperately, as if questioning the lad’s appearance could make him vanish. _How did he get in?_

The answer was obvious, if he took the time to look.

He’d lunged in his sleep, right into his own doorway. The hinges bent and the door was opened, hanging slightly askew. No doubt the sound woke the child and he’d come to investigate. And he was only forbidden from entering Uncle Thorin’s room when the door was shut.

There were no half-remembered feelings of warm fur on cold nights for Thorli. This was no conquering hero, saving him from wargs. As far as the dwarfling knew, this was a slavering beast, right out of a story, come to do him harm.

Thorin let out an involuntary whimper; if he’d had eyes that could cry, he surely would have done so. This was one of his greatest fears realized; that one he loved would look upon him with terror. That it was justified did not lessen the pain of it at all. That he could not give comfort, that every move he make would seem threatening, made it all the worse.

The dread, guilt, and horror in his chest was matched only by the burning and breaking of his body; dawn had come upon him. Soon he would be himself again, but the damage was done.

When Thorin could sense anything other than his own pain, he listened for Thorli’s sobs, but heard none. The child must have run, he hoped he’d run, hoped he hadn’t _seen_ -

His quilt from the bed fell on him, heaved and dropped by unsteady hands.

“I…” Thorli said, his voice a quiet whisper. He gulped. “I didn’t want you to be cold.”

Thorin lifted his head, clutching the blanket around him. The poor lad’s face was white as a sheet where it wasn’t blotchy from tears. He’d only just looked at him when his face crumbled and Thorli started weeping again.

He didn’t know what to do. Thorin wanted to call for Dís or Dwalin, but there was a lump in his throat that he could not speak around. When he sat up, quilt tucked around his waist, his nephew jumped backwards, eyes wide and horribly afraid.

Dáin’s words came back to him, echoing in his mind as if shouted in an empty room, **Better noble death than to lose oneself to such wickedness.**

His own eyes burning, Thorin tentatively reached toward the child, dropping his hand at once when Thorli jumped backward, stumbling into the wall. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, a low buzz of sound, so _inadequate_ in the face of the child’s panic. I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have - I never wanted you to...I’m _sorry.”_

When Thorli looked at him he seemed to be frantically searching his uncle’s face for something, a clue or a hint. A warning, perhaps, that he was going to become a beast again before his eyes. “W-was that...was that you?” he asked, trembling.

There was no way to lie to him. They wanted to wait until he was older. When he would understand that the need for secrecy was so terribly important. Thorin, Balin, Dís, and Dwalin all agreed it was for the best, but looking into the dwarfling’s horrified face, Thorin felt dread curling in his stomach; they’d left the matter too long.

Thorin nodded without saying anything. Thorli’s eyes went even wider, but he did not try to run away. “Why...why do you turn into a monster?”

It was the question Thorin had been asking himself for years. Why him? Why him and no one else? Everyone else who was savaged in that bloodbath lost their lives; why _him?_

So often had he pondered those very words that Thorin found himself surprised that he should weep to hear them now. He brushed his eyes with his knuckles, not looking at Thorli when he replied, “I don’t know.”

Thorin sent him back to his parents and afterward, nothing was quite the same as it had been. Thorli was wary of him, to the point of tensing if Thorin came too close and he avoided being alone with him.

It hurt. Of course it did, but in a perverse way, Thorin was relieved. It was confirmation of all the worst things he’d ever thought about himself. He could not blame the child for being afraid of him, he _was_ frightening, _was_ a monster. It was almost a comfort, in a way. Amid his strange dreams, Dáin’s reports from the East, to know he had been right about himself all along meant at least one small part of himself was not going mad.

Thorin worked longer hours at the forge. Given his unnatural strength and stamina, it was no great strain upon him. He came home after Thorli was abed and supped by himself - at least, that was his goal.

Fíli and Kíli, in response to their brother’s withdrawal, were determined to become more affectionate with their uncle than usual. As they had done when they were tiny dwarflings, they ran to embrace him when he came home from work, hours after his usual time and kissed him before bed, as their mother had always done.

They would take his hands, trying to drag him onto the floor to play draughts or cards with them, glancing at their little brother out of the corners of their eyes as if to say, _See? It’s fine! Come play with us, aren’t you being silly?_

But if he was awake, Thorli would take his toys and play by himself, or at least try to. More often than not, Thorin demurred his nephew’s pleas to pass time with them and shut himself away in his room.

“You’re hurting Uncle Thorin’s feelings,” he heard Dís say to Thorli one night, when the rest of the house was abed. Thorin had heard previous conversations between Dís and Thorli and Dwalin and his son, always round and round the same thing. _You’re making Uncle feel very badly. You’re being very rude to Uncle Thorin. You’re being stubborn, he’s just the same as he’s always been…_

It was all Thorin could do not to intervene in those conversations. To tell them not to fuss over him, certainly not to put the blame on Thorli’s head. He was right, after all. After all this time, one of them was finally right. Finally afraid of him.

“I know,” he heard his nephew reply, quietly. “I’m sorry...but…”

“But nothing,” Dís said, firmly, but not unkindly. “I’d not suffer such treatment from you to a stranger, to say nothing of how you’re treating your uncle who loves you more than all the diamonds in the earth. Do you understand, love? You need to be kind to him.”

“I _want_ to,” Thorli said. “I do, Mam, but…I don’t know how to not be afraid. What if he turns into a monster again?”

“Your uncle isn’t a monster,” Dwalin said, from the doorway of their room it sounded like. “Nothing like, lad. Your uncle is one of the best souls that’s ever trod beneath the earth. And that’s the end of it.”

It wasn’t though. Once Thorli toddled off to bed, Thorin emerged from his room. Even by his owns standards, he looked haggard. There were dark circles, like bruises under his eyes and his cheeks were hollow. Skipping meals to avoid dining with the family was a self-inflicted punishment his body could not stand for long.

“I’ll move ou - ” he started without preamble, but his sister cut him off before he could get his words out.

“No,” Dís interrupted. “No. That won’t do. I won’t have the lad frightened out of his wits by his own kin ‘til the end of all days, I won’t have _you_ making him think there’s aught to be afraid _of_ by leaving!”

“The lad’s not stupid,” Dwalin growled, folding his arms in frustration. “He should know there’s not a thing to be afraid of. Fíli and Kíli wouldn’t let you alone when they found out.”

“Fíli and Kíli half thought I was a toy come to life,” Thorin reminded him a little acidly. “Thorli saw me for what I was and - ”

“Don’t start in on that,” Dwalin said warningly. “Don’t. You’ve been singing that tune for long enough, if you were some beast from the depths come to kill us all, we’d be dead right now and I’m not letting you work yourself into a fit because my son’s gone thick all of a sudden - ”

“He’s not - ”

“I think you’re both being stubborn, if you want to know the truth of it,” Dís volunteered, louder than Dwalin and Thorin. “He starts like a spooked pony every time you pass by, you give him a ten-foot berth, it’s _ridiculous - ”_

A polite cough from the doorway to Balin’s quarters made them all turn around.

“If I may,” Balin ventured. “I think I have a solution.”

* * *

 

Being afraid was the worst feeling in the world. It wasn’t like being sad, when something funny could startle you out of a bad humor. Or even being cross when a bit of time and distraction could chip away at your anger. Being afraid was rotten because there wasn’t anything that anyone could do to make you un-afraid. At least, that’s what Thorlin thought.

He _wanted_ to not be afraid anymore, but he didn’t know how. Each night before he went to bed, he’d think, _Tomorrow I’m going to wake up and everything will be right again._ He’d bed down in his trundle, Goose tucked in next to him and he’d drift off to sleep. Then the bad dreams would come.

Sometimes they started out alright, he’d be playing with his brothers or his friends and Uncle Thorin would come to collect them as usual. But he’d blink or look away and where his uncle was, a huge black monster would be in his place and it would chase him. Thorli would try to run, but his feet would feel stuck, like they were in a vat of treacle. If he tried to scream, nothing would come out. And then all he could see was blackness around him, punctuated by white fangs and white claws.

He’d clamber up into bed with his brothers afterward, or else he would scuttle across the room to crawl in with his parents if he was _really_ frightened. And when he saw Uncle Thorin the next morning, all he would notice were his sharp teeth when he spoke, or the black gloves that hid fingernails like claws and he couldn’t bring himself to hug him or talk to him, even if he tried with all his might. His tummy twisted itself into knots and he remembered how scary he had been when he was a wolf, big and black and growling.

He never should have gotten out of bed. Thorli wished he hadn’t and wished he could forget everything he’d seen, but it was impossible.

Something had woken him at night, he was too bleary-eyed and sleepy when he rose to realize quite what it was. His brothers were fast asleep in the bed just above him and neither his mother nor his father stirred; they were too tangled up in a lump together for Thorli to discern either one of them clearly. That left Uncle Balin and Uncle Thorin unaccounted for.

Desiring to check on them, to make sure they were both alright, he sneaked out of bed as quietly as he could, bare feet cold against the stone. Uncle Thorin’s door was open, just a crack so it was there Thorli decided to look first. A sound like a cry made him push the door open so he could slip through it. He did not know what he expected to find, he thought that Uncle Thorin might be unwell, might need help getting back into bed so he’d run and get his Mam or Da, but first he wanted to _check_.

When he saw the giant hairy monster, his first thought was that Uncle Thorin had been eaten and he was next. It was like a beast out of a faery story, the kind that lurked in the forests and gobbled up wayward dwarflings who didn’t mind their parents - but this was no forest. It was his home, his uncle’s bedroom and Thorli didn’t know how it had gotten in. It didn’t matter, the monster was here now and his uncle was nowhere to be seen.

His legs were like jelly, he couldn’t run away and his throat was closed up, tight and panicked so he couldn’t scream. The monster turned away from him, Thorli hoped against hope that it had forgotten he was there, if he screamed, it would spot him all over again, so he sat curled up against the wall, hands over his mouth and tears running down his face.

It was the most scared he’d ever been in all of his young life and it only got scarier. Thorli covered his eyes as the creature started to shake and twist, but he couldn’t cover his ears at the same time. The sound was awful, whines and growls under sounds like bones breaking and sinews snapping. He’d only ever heard such things when Gimli’s grandfather was at work butchering a pig or a deer in his shop and it made him feel sick and dizzy. He hardly dared open his eyes when it was quiet again.

At first, he’d been unspeakably relieved to see Uncle Thorin - albeit an unclad Uncle Thorin who appeared to be unconscious. Only when he was rushing to get a blanket to cover him up so he wouldn’t be shivery on the cold floor did it occur to him that giant monsters did not spontaneously disappear just because little dwarflings wished they would. Not in any of the stories he’d been told.

It was then that he noticed the things about Uncle Thorin that so disturbed him now. The fact that his ears were pointy, like the monster’s. That his teeth were too big. That his hands did not sport the blunted fingernails of the rest of his family, but were instead thick and sharp. Like claws.

Uncle Thorin was a monster sometimes. He sounded like Uncle Thorin, he talked just like his uncle did, quietly and steadily and Thorli loved him _so_ much and never thought his uncle would ever, ever hurt him…

But monsters would hurt him. That was what monsters did. And Uncle Thorin was a monster.

Thorli had been on his guard ever since, not sure if he would see a dwarf when Uncle Thorin came around the corner or a terrifying beast. He was worried it would happen again if they were alone, as it had the first time, so he tried to stick close by his Mam or Da or brothers or Uncle Balin, just in case.

Mam said he had to be kind to Uncle Thorin. Da said he shouldn’t be afraid at all since there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Fíli and Kíli seemed baffled by their little brother’s sudden fear of their uncle. “But he’s so fluffy!” Kíli explained as Thorli ducked his head and frowned at the floor. Maybe when Kíli had last seen Uncle Thorin, he didn’t have those claws.

Mam was cross with him - not just cross, sad too. Da was frustrated. Uncle Balin was trying to be patient, he could tell. He said it was alright to be afraid, but when he grew up lots of things would scare him and he would have to conquer that fear. That was the word he used, ‘conquer,’ like leading a siege or slaying an orc.

Thorli hadn’t much liked the sound of that and it left him feeling more confused than ever. Was he supposed to slice Uncle Thorin with a knife? He didn’t want to. Despite his fear, Thorli still loved his uncle, very much. Uncle Thorin was one of Thorli’s most favorite dwarves in the whole entire world.

He liked to be quiet sometimes, just as Thorli did. When there was a party going on, for instance, sometimes Thorli would cover his ears when the noise was too loud and Uncle Thorin would find him and they’d go outside for a little bit until he felt like going back in. His brothers liked to join in dancing or singing with company, but Thorli was much happier just watching. Uncle Thorin didn’t mind, didn’t ask him again and again if he wanted to go have fun. Sometimes it was fun watching everyone else have fun and when Uncle Thorin was with them, he always had someone to sit beside and watch with him.

But what if next time they were together, Uncle Thorin changed? It worried him so much and there was no one to talk to about how scared he was and no one knew how to make it better, except to tell him that he shouldn’t be afraid in the first place. The only one who seemed to think his fear was justified was Uncle Thorin himself. But Thorli couldn’t talk to Uncle Thorin because ti scared him too much. It was quite the predicament.

After supper one night, when Mam kept glancing worriedly at the door and Da grumbled about someone being ‘too damn self-sacrificing, the bloody martyr,’ and though he never mentioned Uncle Thorin by name, Thorli had a good idea that was who he meant.

He felt tears pricking at his eyes. It was _his_ fault Uncle Thorin stayed away and now his parents were worried about him. He was about to put his toys away and get ready for bed when Fíli crouched down before him and asked if he wanted to take a walk.

“It’s too late,” Mam called from across the room. “The sun’s going down.”

“We’ll stay by the house,” Fíli promised, holding Thorli by the hand. “Right outside our window, cross my heart and all.”

Thorli turned to look at Kíli expectantly, but he just sat on the ground, “Go on,” he smiled encouragingly. “I’ll tidy, eh?”

If Thorli was a more suspicious child, he would have known there was a plan afoot. Kíli hardly ever cleaned up after himself and promised Thorli sweets in exchange for doing his chores, giving away all his spending money in toffees and biscuits so he wouldn’t have to sweep the hearth or make his bed. That he should so freely offer to clean up after Thorlin was peculiar, but Thorli was a trusting fellow in general and thought nothing of it.

The sun was indeed going down, painting the horizon an orangey-red behind the mountains. Fíli sat down in the grass outside their apartment and tugged Thorli down to sit in his lap. “Can you see the moon?” he asked.

Thorli tilted his head back and wasn’t long in searching before he found it. It was huge and yellow, very nearly full. “I see it,” he confirmed. “What am I looking for?”

“Just that,” Fíli said. “I know you’re...nervy about Uncle Thorin. And I know me and Kíli said there wasn’t nothing to be worried over, but we got to thinking and we never telled you _why_ you needn’t worry.”

Thorli did not reply. That wasn’t quite true, everyone told him why he shouldn’t worry. Uncle Thorin loved him and he wasn’t a monster and he was good and safe and let that be the end of it. But he looked _so_ frightening. How could something that looked so vicious be truly good?

“See,” Fíli took a deep breath and explained. “See, that there moon up there’s what does it. He don’t - he doesn’t just turn into a wolf on his own. It’s got to be a full moon and when the sun’s up again, he turns back again. So if you want to be scared, you only need to be scared when the moon’s full.”

“I don’t want to be scared!” Thorli said, turning and looking up into Fíli’s face imploringly. “Honest I don’t! But...but he wasn’t warm and fluffy like Kíli said, he had fangs and claws and I thought he was going to _eat_ me.”

Fíli frowned, “He wouldn’t.”

Thorli heaved a frustrated little sigh and replied softly, “You didn’t see.”

“I did though,” Fíli said. “Once, when I was little - not so little as you, but nearly - me and Kíli got out of bed when we oughtn’t have done and I saw Uncle Thorin...usually I’d not tell you since it might scare you, but you’re scared anyhow, so what’s it matter? We saw Uncle Thorin take on two great big wargs all on his lonesome. It was the bloodiest thing I ever seen! There wasn’t enough left of ‘em to make a steak when he was through. They got some good licks in too, they was raring for a fight! And me and Kíli was in the hall just looking and then he turned round and saw us.”

“What’d he do?” Thorli asked, eyes wide as dinnerplates, hands raising to his mouth in fear.

“Not a thing,” Fíili replied. “Sat down, quiet as you like. Kíli patted his head even! ‘Cos the thing you got to know, Thorli, is when Uncle’s...not looking like Uncle, it’s still him just the same. Like how when you put on a suit o’armor. It’s still you in it. Or if a dwarf picks up a spear. Sure, they could do you a harm, but if they loves you, they won’t. And Uncle loves you, even when he’s a bit scary looking.”

Thorli pondered his brother’s words, staring back up at the moon above. He wanted so much to believe him. He wanted things to be as they were, but he still wasn’t quite certain -

“What’re you lads doing out here?” Uncle Thorin was back, standing ten paces away, his hammer over his shoulder. He was sooty and his tunic stained dark with sweat; difficult to see in the gloom.

“Waiting for you,” Fíli said, getting his brother off his lap. He approached his uncle and took him by the hand. “Mam and Mister Dwalin were fussing.”

“They do that,” Thorin sighed. Thorli hesitated a moment, pondering what Fíli said. The moon was shining down on all of them, but his uncle looked much the same as he always did. His mouth was closed and his hands were covered. He didn’t look frightening. He looked sleepy.

Thorli shyly walked close by them. He didn’t take his uncle’s other hand - he couldn’t, not when it held his hammer - but he did take Fíli’s. And together the three of them walked in the house. His fear was not gone, but there was less of it. He stayed in the kitchen when his uncle ate his supper. And when his mother kissed his brow when he woke and told him that they were all going to pass the evening with his uncle on the full moon night, he managed a nod of agreement and only trembled a little bit.

Uncle went into his own room when the moon rose and Thorli sat on his father’s lap on the kitchen table, moving his fork around his plate, spearing potatoes, but not eating them. Mam complimented him for being brave, but Thorli didn’t think he was being so brave; he had Da with him after all and if anyone could wrestle a big giant monster wolf into submission, it was Thorli’s Da.

He hadn’t armed himself, though and was in fact not paying much mind to the doorway Thorli couldn’t take his eyes off of. Instead, he was playing chess with Uncle Balin, while Fíli and Kíli (allied with Uncle Balin and Da respectively), offered suggestions which were mostly ignored.

Mam waited a bit after it was all dark outside before she tried the handle on Uncle Thorin’s door. Thorli held his breath, but at first, nothing happened.

“Oh, come along,” she tutted impatiently. “If a wee lad of twenty can be brave enough to come out, a grown dwarf of two-hundred can do the same.”

There was a kind of muted huffing barking nose that made Thorli tense, but Da just kissed the top of his head and put Uncle Balin in check.

“Well, you’re as good as two-hundred,” Mam huffed back. She didn’t sound a bit scared, but Thorli knew his mother wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone.

“Closer to three,” Da muttered. When another huffing grumble of a growl came from behind the stone, Da looked up, unimpressed. “Come out here and say it to my face, then.”

“Checkmate,” Uncle Balin replied placidly and Fíli cheered.

“What? How?” Da demanded, squinting down at the gameboard. Thorli was so distracted by the hubbub about the game that he almost missed the huge, dark shape padding cautiously into the room.

Thorli shrank back up against his father’s chest, but even as he shied away, the wolf didn’t seem as frightful as it had so many weeks ago. Its teeth weren’t bared and snarling and though its claws clicked against the stone, they weren’t curled and ready to tear him to shreds. And, staring from across the length of the table, Thorli had to admit to himself that Kíli was right - Uncle Thorin was awfully fluffy that way. Even if he was so big Thorli wasn’t sure how he got out the door in the first place.

Kíli darted away from the table, looking up at Uncle Thorin with a guileless expression and wide, pleading eyes. Thorli bit his lip and almost clapped his hands together in front of his eyes, certain his older brother was going to get swiped at, but Kíli only asked, “If I paid for the saddle, would you give rides for five pennies a-piece? Please?”

Mam laughed and the sound loosened Thorli’s nerves a bit. Da snorted above his head and Uncle Balin covered his hand with his mouth and coughed, but he looked like he was smiling beneath it all. The wolf just stared down at Kíli and deliberately shook it’s head from side-to-side.

“Thought not,” he said, only a little disappointed. “But no harm asking, eh?”

“You get strange notions,” Mam said, ruffling Kíli’s hair, “in that odd little head of yours.”

“It weren’t _all_ my own idea,” Kíli admitted. “Well, I thought Uncle Thorin should give rides, but it was Fíli’s idea to charge for ‘em.”

“Five pennies, though?” Da squinted at Uncle Thorin appraisingly. “Surely the pleasure’s worth a shilling, at least.”

“Well, if he was going to go fast,” Fíli acknowledged. “But Uncle’s careful. He doesn’t hardly let us trot on ponyback.”

The giant wolf made a ‘harumphing’ sound that sounded an awful lot like the noise Uncle Thorin made when he was being teased. He walked away from them all to sit in front of the fire, as affronted an expression as he could make on his face. Thorli watched it all without speaking, though his hands left his mouth and his eyes returned to their usual size.

It wasn’t long before it was his bedtime. He was yawning and falling asleep in his father’s arms. Da stood up, Thorli on his hip, jostling him so that he could bid the rest of his family goodnight. He lowered him down so he could kiss his brothers and his uncle and his Mam until finally Uncle Thorin was the only one left, sitting in front of the fire still.

Thorli hesitated just a moment before he pointed at his other uncle. Da muttered, “Good lad,” and brought him over, bending so that Thorli could place the softest kiss on the top of Uncle Thorin’s black-furred head.

“Night-night, Uncle,” he whispered softly. “I’m sorry I was scared afore.”

Uncle Thorin couldn’t talk like that, but he looked up at him with blue eyes that were just the same as they always were and Thorli knew that all was well between them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long! I got into a bit of a funk with this one, but I should be back on track now! Thanks to **tum-tigger** for providing ideas and encouragement! The epic poem Dwalin is quoting is actually "The Illiad" by Homer, the Robert Fagles translation


	7. Chapter 7

Kíli had earned his Journeyman status when the rumors made their way to the Ered Luin.

A one-eyed dwarrow-smith, seen round-about Dunland. No, he hadn’t given a name, but he made inquiries about the royal family and settlers of Erebor in the West. He asked about the prince and princess in particular. Asked about their mother the Queen and when he was told she was dead, he asked no more.

“Could be someone who wants to make trouble,” Dwalin said from the back of the forge, as ever keeping one eye on Kíli while he worked. The lad was careful enough when he was concentrating, but it was clear to anyone with eyes that he was devoting most of his attention to the adult’s conversation than he was to the metal heating to red in his tongs.

“Could be,” Thorin agreed, hefting an axe to take to the grindstone to shape the blade. “Or…”

“Or,” Dís spoke up, laying her hammer by so she could hear them over the noise, “it could be naught at all. If he knows where we are, why hasn’t he come before now?”

Thorin had no answer and he disguised the fact by wiping his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his tunic. The people had given Thráin up for dead long ago. His name was recited with those of the slain upon the Day of Remembrance in the temple halls every year, though none knew where he had fallen.

 _If he had fallen,_ Thorin thought and sat at the grindstone with a grim look upon his face. It was treacherous, that mind of his. Not only when it turned his thoughts to bile and left him a hollow-eyed shell of himself, not only when he dreamt of death and fire and blood between his teeth, not when his thoughts were morose and made him weep or scream. No, the worst his mind was capable of was the little glimmer of hope that flared behind his ribs whenever Thorin turned his thoughts to his father.

Thorin had last seen him after the battle, staring at the killing fields, his expression vacant. He was bleeding, Thorin was sure he was bleeding, but he sought no aid. Thorin would have spoken to him, he wanted to say something, but his mangled shoulder required treatment and he was bundled off to the healers’ tents with the rest.

He should have stopped. He knew now his wound was not mortal. Not in the way he feared it might be. All these years, he thought if only someone had seen to his father and not to him, Thráin might have remained. Might have been the king Thorin never could be.

If he lived, what a miracle, what a _blessing._ For it would matter not that Thorin was a cursed thing, the burden of kingship could pass smoothly from his father to his nephew. He could disappear into the shadows, like the proverbial monster in the dark. There would be no threat of ruin to his people if his secret was discovered, only to himself.

Fíli was of age, but too young, still. Thorin did not begrudge the lad his youth or his youthful high spirits. When Thorin was eighty he was a prince wandering the earth, toiling his days away for pennies and spending his nights overseeing the camp or else keeping a close watch on Frerin and Dís.

It was a blessing he could pass his nights enjoying himself with friends, stumbling in long after dark and rising late, catching a scolding from his mother. That was what a boy his age _should_ be doing, not going over expenses, cutting back his own rations to feed his siblings, or worrying if _this_ would be the day they overstayed their welcome.

Thorin had lived almost a full century before his father disappeared and, looking back, even now he thought he himself had been far too young.

They spoke no more about it that day. Fíli returned early from making deliveries with Thorli in tow. The two brothers had each inherited their father’s stature - which meant they were nearly same height, despite Fíli being thirty years older.

“What’d you do?” Dís asked when she saw her sons come walking up the path to the counter. “Sneak out a window to skive off lessons?”  
  
“Ori and Lúfi came by with _questions,”_ Thorli drew the word out so there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind as to just how much time the questions of the two most curious scholars in the Ered Luin would take up. He leaned his elbows on the counter and sat his head in his hands. “I thought it was best to leave them to it. I think Uncle Balin’s given up on me anyway.”  
  
Dwalin was very obviously pretending not to listen to his son; the two of them had the same unfortunate difficulty with the written word and every time it came up, he would berate himself and Dís would tell him to hush, and they’d have a row. In the end, the grim satisfaction of blaming himself for his lack of his son’s scholarly progress was not worth the fuss so Dwalin kept his mouth shut.  
  
“That’s alright,” Kíli said, as he always did when Thorli got down on himself. “I was never much for schooling either - no books to read in the forge! You ought to be here all the time, now that I can’t be ordered about to carry coal scuttles or feed the fire or do the washing up!”  
  
“You most certainly can,” Dís remarked wryly. “So long as I’m alive when I tell you to fetch some fuel, I’ll expect it done.”  
  
Still, she looked Thorli up and down, leveling a contemplative glance at Thorin and her brother. “Still, that bears thinking on,” she continued. “I’ve known plenty of dwarves who started younger than forty-eight when they stopped schooling began apprenticing.”  
  
She was talking about herself and they well knew it. Thorin opened his mouth to reply that her upbringing was due to circumstance and necessity. They did not _need_ Thorli to set aside books and slate for hammer and steel. They were doing well now, they could feed themselves, pay the rent, the lad could have his childhood as his brothers had, at least for two more years - but he didn’t say a word. An idea occurred to him, then, one that made him turn away from the rest of his family to contemplate it.

“I’d be happy to take on another apprentice to replace the old one,” Dwalin said, ignoring Kíli’s pained insistence that though he was _grown_ , he was by no means _old._ “Trouble is, have we got the room for another body in here?”

“You will,” Thorin said abruptly, hanging his hammer and removing his apron. “I’m going on a trip.”

“You’re not,” Dís said at once, shaking her head.

“Where?” Thorli asked, eyes alight with curiosity.

“May we come?” Fíli and Kíli asked in one breath.

“Tomorrow,” Thorin said, paying no mind to Dwalin’s grunt of dismay or his sister’s open disapproval. “Dunland. And no, you may not come, you’re needed here.”

Dís’s childhood memories was full of her parents’ arguments. She had a rule that she seldom broke that she would not fight with Thorin or Dwalin where the children could see and hear them. She did not break it now, but it was a near thing. Thorin did not need his uncanny abilities to hear her frequent huffing sighs, her elevated heartbeat, or the frequent tapping of the toe of her boot upon the stone floor of their lodgings.

It was only when Kíli and Fíli were off to the pub and Thorli was in bed that she finally voiced her objections, next door, over Balin’s kitchen table.

“There’s no point in going,” she maintained over a mug of tea which came with a liberal splash of whiskey. “There’s not. Even if it is him - which I don’t think it is! - he probably won’t see you. If he wanted to find us, he could have by now. Since he hasn’t, he doesn’t, so just leave it alone.”

Balin was warming his hands on his mug, looking up at Thorin doubtfully with his back leaning against the wall. “It could be anyone at all,” he sighed. “Or no one. Or worse, some enemy trying to draw you out, alone, for their own purposes.”

“He won’t be alone,” Dwalin countered, though they hadn’t discussed the matter of his coming. “I’ll be with him.”

“No you won’t,” Dís and Thorin said at once.

Dís looked started at having agreed with her brother and she shook her head adamantly, _“He_ isn’t going because _neither_ of you is going! No one is going to Dunland and you certainly aren’t going by yourself. It’s got to be a month’s journey there and back on foot.”

“All the more reason for me to go alone,” Thorin maintained steadily. “I can travel faster on my own and - ”

“And if you don’t make it back _within a month,”_ Dís spoke over him, “Then what will become of you?”

“I’ll come back,” Thorin countered. “Within a month, I swear.”

“What do you swear by?” she asked, a little desperate. Dwalin made an abortive move toward her, but Balin shook his head, watching the fight with great concern. Without waiting for Thorin to reply, she shook her head and left them, slamming the door that joined their apartments for good measure on the way out.

Dwalin found her curled up in bed, face buried in her pillow, turned away from Thorli who was sleeping across the room. Fíli and Kíli had not yet returned. He lay a warm hand on her shoulder and Dís turned her head, but she didn’t look at him.

“If he wants to go we can’t very well stop him,” Dwalin said. Thorin was stronger than any of them by far, faster too and more tireless. They wouldn’t stand a chance if they were of a mind to really fight him on it. Not unless they shackled him and that was a step none of them were willing to take. Thorin was stubborn, not dangerous. He only ran the risk of breaking his sister’s heart.

“I know you’re worried that Thorin’s not going to find your Da - ” Dwalin said when his first response got no reply, but he didn’t get to finish the thought before Dís turned around and looked up at him with red eyes.

“I’m not worried that Thorin won’t find him, I’m worried that he _will,”_ Dís scrubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hand. “Because I don’t want...I don’t want Thorin to be told to his face that we were given up ninety years ago and he’s done with us.”

She bit her lower lip and leaned against Dwalin when he sat down beside her on the bed and gathered her up in his arms. “Oh, lass…”

“If he wanted us he would have come back,” Dís said in a whisper. “But he didn’t. He didn’t care and Ama couldn’t do it on her own. She stopped caring and I don’t - I don’t want Thorin to give up. I don’t think I could - ”

Whatever she was going to say was lost when Dís heard movement from Thorli’s bed. She held her breath for a moment, but he only turned over, sighing in his sleep.

“Hush,” Dwalin said, kissing her hair. “Let me tell you something about that brother of yours. I’ve known him longer than you have, I consider myself a bit of an expert - ”

“Stop trying to make me laugh,” Dís ordered, though the sides of her mouth twitched a bit.

“I’m not, I’m speaking the truth,” Dwalin insisted. “Listen well now: if Thorin hasn’t given up by now, one more disappointment isn’t going to be the straw that breaks him. Think about it. Erebor gone, Khazad-dum closed to us ‘til Father Durin comes again, that _animal_ nearly ripping a chunk out of his arm, not to mention Frerin, your Ma, then Víli - ”

“Now you’re going to make me cry,” she whispered.

“ - but he’s _still_ here, isn’t he?” he continued doggedly. “Still gets himself out of bed most mornings. Still carries on. If those rumors are false, he’s no better or worse of than he is today. If they’re true and it turns out your father was the worst sort of wretch there is, well. It’s a suspicion of mine confirmed anyway.”

“Don’t let Thorin hear you say that,” Dís advised warningly.

“He has done, actually,” Dwalin informed her. “Years ago, I gave him a piece of my mind about your parents. I got a black eye and a bloody lip for it, but he survived. He’s not so changeable as you think.”

“I know, I know,” she nodded, swallowing thickly. “It’s just...Fíli’s of age and I’m sure he’s thought about what that means.”

“Oh, aye, he has,” Dwalin agreed. “No doubt. It means if anything happens to him, there’s another lad in this family coming into too much trouble too damn young. He’d have to be a stone-hearted bastard to do to Fíli what was done to him. And you and I both know he’s anything but.”

Dís did know. She lifted her head up and kissed Dwalin with dry eyes and a small smile playing around her lips. “You’re too good, you know?”

“So I’ve heard,” he grinned down at her and pushed her so she lay on the bed. “Get some sleep. He’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Thorin, standing in the kitchen, eavesdropping without quite meaning to, looked at the door of their flat. He thought about the bag he had, packed and ready to be off at a moment’s notice. Thought about the traveling cloak hung on a peg on the back of his bedroom door. He was interrupted from his reverie by the sound of two solid bodies stumbling through the hall, the jingling of coins in pockets hitting metal keys, fumbled around by unsteady fingers.

He opened the door and nodded towards his nephews’ room. “Quietly, now,” he advised. “Your Mam’s abed - so’s the rest of the household.”

Kíli nodded, eyes wide and solemn as he put his fingers to his lips and, ‘Shhed’ as if in agreement. Fíli giggled and patted Thorin clumsily on the arm.

“Night watch turning in?” he asked, nodding in turn at Thorin’s own door.

Thorin did not hesitate as he nodded, “Aye, in a minute.”

Kíli fell into his arms and kissed him sloppily on the cheek, “‘Night uncle!” he called, forgetting his prior promise to keep quiet.

“‘Night,” Thorin replied. He waited until he heard the sound of the lads falling into their beds - and not onto the floor - before he went back to his room and shut the door.

* * *

 

He was there the next day when his sister woke. And she saw him off the next evening, a farewell on her lips and worry in her eyes, when he picked up his bag and traveling cloak and left for Dunland. Thorin was good as his word, the morning of the next full moon he was back, hands trembling so much he totally mangled his house key trying to let himself in during the wee hours.

He hadn’t found his father abroad. But he’d met someone else, the Grey wizard, the one their people called Tharkun. He had no more news of his father than anyone else, but he offered his aid on a quest of a different sort.

“It’s not...you know, in a way, I’m relieved,” Dís offered, riding on ponyback in the hot, summer sun. “Marching across the country with an army at our backs. It’ll slow us down. A smaller Company will be easier to manage. Swifter travel - ”

“But not so easy to hide,” Thorin interjected, quietly.

Dís made a nose of dismissal and nudged her pony on so that she was riding side by side with her brother. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyway, there aren’t many to hide from. Half know. And...well, Bofur’s the nosiest thing that ever drew breath, but Bifur and Bombur’ll make him mind his manners.”

“What about Dori and his brothers?”

“Well, _I’ll_ make Nori mind his manners if no one else does,” Dís promised him. “And - not to sound _too_ cruel, but...you don’t invite conversation on your best days.”

Thorin made a disgruntled noise in his throat and made to urge his pony to trot, but Dís spoke quickly after him, “You _know_ you don’t. And it’s by design, of course, but...well, if you wander off for the night with me or Dwalin or Balin or even the lads, no one will mark it much, I’m sure.”

Despite her best efforts to make Thorin feel more sanguine about this endeavor, she seemed to trouble him further. “What is it?” she asked, though if Thorin was honest, the list of his troubles could be recited to the Iron Hills and back.

“You left your son for me,” he said, not looking at her, gaze fixed on the horizon.

Dís caught her breath. She knew he was going to mention it, she should have been prepared, but she’d been trying so hard not to think of it. Thorlin tried _so_ hard to be brave and he’d done admirably, the sweet child. He’d embraced and kissed each of them in their turn, wishing them safe journey and good luck.

 _“Don’t get any taller, eh?”_ Fíli requested, ruffling his younger brother’s hair with an easy smile. _“While we’re away. If you come East and you’re bigger than me, I won’t talk to you for a week!”_

Thorli smiled, a little self-consciously. He had inherited his father’s dimpled cheeks and hadn’t nearly enough beard to hide his round face or the dimples that made him look his age, despite his height. _“I’ll do my best,”_ he promised, slouching a little.

 _“Don’t mind him,”_ Kíli said, tweaking his nose and slamming their brows together. _“He tried doing the same to me when I outgrew him, but he didn’t last longer than two hours. Keep Gimli out of trouble, eh?”_

 _“That I_ can’t _promise,”_ Thorli shook his head sadly. Gimli held out longer than two hours; when he’d been declared too young to go dragon-hunting, he slammed the door of his room and refused to come out for a full day and night - confirming the fact that he was too young to go dragon-hunting.

So were Fíli and Kíli, in her heart. The two left from the Ered Luin together, scant hours after Balin and Dwalin set out. They would unite at the home of the burglar Gandalf procured for them...that was the unknown factor, the one neither Thorin nor Dís approved of. But if they did not agree to the wizard’s terms, he would surely desert them. And fourteen dwarves and a halfling could not face a living dragon, if Smaug still slept beneath the rock, without magical aid.

If it meant she would see her youngest son again, that Thorlin could come home, to the East, to his father, brothers, uncles, and all his kin, she would agree to whatever Gandalf required of them.

“He could not come,” Dís said quietly. “And I could not stay.”

Thorin threw her a pained look. “I do not - ”

“Stop,” she commanded him. “Don’t say you don’t deserve me. Don’t say it. Because you dishonor me if you say it. And if I’m offended I won’t talk to you all the way to this Shire place. You’ll be miserably bored.”

A low chuckle reached her ears and Thorin smiled tiredly at her. The moon had been full the night before last and he had not slept nearly enough to make a full recovery, but he insisted that they ride until nightfall. They couldn’t be late.

“Hervor’s happy to have him,” she said. “He’ll keep Gimli very good company.”

 _“I’ll cheer him up,”_ Thorli vowed, glancing over his shoulder to where Gimli was sharpening a bearded axe for no other reason except to prove that he did, in fact, own an axe and therefore should be allowed to test his skill against the wilderness and a dragon. _“I’ll try to, anyway. It’ll be like a holiday.”_

He smiled up at her when he spoke, but Dís read the apprehension in his eyes. He was afraid for them and she did not blame him one bit. She was absolutely terrified, but there she was. This time, she who was afraid of being left was the one doing the leaving and she hated every moment of it. But she could not stay; she would have run mad.

After they collected their burglar, the first weeks of travel ran smoothly. They were crossing civilized countryside, light-dappled meadows and cool rushing brooks which provided them with plenty of fresh drinking water. Though there was some grumbling among the Company about the necessity of sleeping out of doors, they could none of them find fault with the good weather that made for easy travel.

There had been little discussion about what was to be done with Thorin when the time came. They had been so busy cobbling together supplies, ponies, selling what could be sold that they had no time to make a plan before they left the Ered Luin. On the road, there was no chance of discussing it where they would not risk being overheard.

Dís was not concerned, at first; they were surrounded by forest, if Thorin slipped away with herself or Dwalin after dark, none would be likely to venture after him. Despite her brother’s earlier indignation, Dís knew that his reputation for being a surly sort of dwarf would work to his benefit here.

It meant the Company respected him, but were leery of actually talking to him if they did not have to. Bifur alone would draw Thorin into private conversation, at the edge of the firelight, mostly conducted in iglishmek. Glóin was more cordial toward Thorin than once he had been, but neither were given to enjoying long talks with one another. Dwalin, as ever when in mixed company, shut his mouth as tight as a miser’s fist around a gold piece and he and Thorin communicated largely by way of exasperated looks. If Thorin’s close kin did not speak to him, it certainly did not invite the conversation of others.

Except for Nori. Nori liked to talk to Thorin, especially when he perceived that things were going badly.

“Bit of a hairy situation, eh?” he remarked the night after their ordeal with the trolls. “I was fighting _tooth and nail_ to get off that spit, I figured you were much the same.”

Thorin didn’t give him the dignity of a reply, he only gave him a disgruntled look and went off to make inquiries of the wizard.

Dís punched Nori in the back of the head. “Your hair’s singed,” she informed him.

“Is it?” he asked, pulling the tail of his braid over his shoulder to assess the damage. Finding it acceptable to be going on with, he tossed his hair - then gave Dís a grin. “Bet your brother’s _howling_ with rage about now. Running in to save the halfling, getting saved by the wizard. Not a good omen.”

“It isn’t an omen,” Dís replied huffily. “Just bad luck - what are you doing with your face?”

Nori had been waggling his eyebrows up and down as if he intended to use them to fly away, but he stopped when a braid came loose and stuck him in the eye. She left him rubbing his face and cursing as Thorin barked out orders for continuing without their mounts.

They were running low on funds and there was a village near the old farmstead where they made their camp. It was too much to hope that they could afford new ponies for the whole Company, but they might be able to replenish some supplies if Bofur, Bombur and Bifur could find a market for their toys.

There was another consideration to make; the full moon would be upon them not a day hence. It would be an unexpected spot of good luck to find an inn in which to pass the night.

It was a small village, they expected stares, but not the sort they got. Those who spent so many years wandering after Erebor’s fall were used to the fear, the wariness that accompanied entering these backwaters, where dwarves were more legend than anything else. They’d heard a hundred faery stories about their ability to spin straw into gold, or that they took children of Men in exchange for services. But these Men in their marketplace did not seem afraid. On the contrary, they seemed delighted.

The children came forward first, dragging their parents by their hands when they heard that there were toys for sale.

The Company was surprised, but cautiously pleased - all except Bilbo who was an object of general fascination and was asked a dozen times by curious younglings whether or not he was a _baby_ dwarf since he hadn’t any beard at all.

It was only when Dís mentioned that they had some blacksmiths among them, if any had work for them to do that their pleasure turned to suspicion and alarm.

“We’ve got one of those already,” a Man, father to four little girls who were pulling on Ori’s scarf and rubbing their cheeks against it to feel the softness, said a little distractedly. “Works magic, he does. Once he fixes something, it stays fixed! Just come into town not more nor six months ago. Could be kin to you, smithy’s on the edge of town.”

“He has drawings on his face,” one of the little girls piped up.

“And he’s only got one eye!” another offered. Then added, “Only I’m not s’posed to say ‘cos that’s rude.”

Thorin’s face went pale as Dís locked eyes with him.

“He’s a _Man,”_ she hissed, grabbing hold of his wrist as he stalked away from the marketplace. “They think we all look alike! I’ll wager he’s no proper dwarf, just a short Man with - ”

“I didn’t come this far south,” Thorin muttered. “I _couldn’t.”_

They were being followed, Balin and Dwalin hurried along after them with Óin following in their wake. Glóin was preoccupied trying to extricate himself from the enthusiasm of one of the little girls who very much wanted to dig her fingers into his beard.

Thorin wasn’t walking by the time they burst free of the hustle and bustle of the market, he was running. Fast, too fast to be natural and his kin struggled to keep pace with him, but when he saw the grizzled head of a dwarf whose once-impressive beard had been shorn close to his face, whose sightless left eye faced the street, and whose tattoos, faded by time clearly marked him out as a warrior of Erebor’s King’s Guard for anyone who had eyes to see, he stopped dead.

_“Adad.”_

The word was a whisper, a mere exhale of breath, no one should have heard it. Yet Thráin turned and looked upon the faces of his children for the first time in one-hundred years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE! Well, I hope that was a surprise, anyway. Maybe it was totally predictable, but I don't care because THRAIN I LOVE THRAIN SO MUCH.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: **Draugluin** and **Anfauglir** (aka Carcharoth) were two werewolves out of the legendarium, the latter was the one who bit off Beren's hand and swallowed both it AND a silmaril.

The only thing more shocking than seeing Thráin, King Under the Mountain, assumed dead all these long years, toiling away in a village of Men, was what Óin did once he’d recovered from the sight. 

Before anyone else could say a word or make a movement toward him, Óin stormed forward, fist raised. 

“You _bastard,”_ he hissed, rearing back and landing a solid punch on Thráin’s face. Thráin flinched back, but otherwise bore the assault. “You _miserable_ \- do you know what those bairns have suffered without you? Do you have any _idea - ”_

“Óin,” Thorin said softly. “Stop.”

It was clear from his posture and the surly expression on his face that stopping was the furthest thing from Óin’s mind. But he stiffened his shoulders and backed away, throwing one last hateful glance at Thráin as he did so. For his part, Thráin was staring at them all as if he’d seen a howling back of ghosts come out of the ether. But there was recognition in the one blue eye that was left to him. Recognition and resignation. 

After the battle, the story went around the camp that their king had lost his mind. That the grief had been too much for him and had broken him utterly. But they could all see this was not the case, for here he was, working at his craft. Grey of hair and short of beard, but undeniably well in mind for he took a breath, his broad chest rising and falling once before he said, “Let’s have it out, then.”

“There’s naught to say,” Dís said, turning away from them all with a fierce expression on her face. Thorin tried grabbing hold of her sleeve to stop her going but she pulled away from him so quickly that her tunic ripped. “No. _No._ Whatever he’s got - whatever excuses - I don’t want to hear it.”

She ran off, then, quick as lightning, back to the market, with such haste and speed that Thorin wouldn’t have been surprised if she tried to run all the way back to the Ered Luin. Back to the son she’d left so reluctantly, away from the father who’d abandoned them without a thought. 

Thráin stared after her, but whether her wanted to stop her or not, Thorin did not know. Could not tell. His father’s thoughts had ever been a mystery to him. The only thing he knew instinctively was his father’s disapproval. The last time he had seen Dís she had been a child, little more. Sixty years old and skinny as a broomstick. Did he feel _anything_ to see her now, grown and thickly built, taller than her father? Did he regret missing her grow up? Did he feel shame that she should flee from the sight of him?

Thorin wondered, but he didn’t ask. He did not want to know what his father thought of his sister now. What he wanted to know was why he’d left them _then._

Thorin wished he could burn with fury as his sister did, as Óin did, but he found he did not. Anger came easily to him, it always had, but not here. Here he felt only a burning desire to know what made his father take flight that long-ago night. And beneath it all, that deep-held, childish wish that he would come back and take the mantle of kingship away, for he knew he was not worthy of bearing it. 

Óin’s voice startled him back to reality, “If it wasn’t for the orders of my _king_ ,” he pronounced the word with particular venom, “I’d have my hands around your neck or worse. Damn it, you miserable bastard.”

Thráin’s hand went to his brow in such a habitual gesture that Thorin ached down to his soul to see it. But before he could utter a single word, his father spoke again, “Why are you come so far East?”

That _voice_. The bite of irritation around the edges, the snap of it, the demand, the implication that whatever response Thráin was going to hear had already failed to satisfy him. Thorin remembered that voice, heard it sometimes, in his dreams or worse, in his waking hours. Just a buzz at the base of his skull that said he was _not good enough._

“We were bid to go,” Thorin said softly. “On the word of a wizard. To reclaim your throne.”

“Do _not - ”_ Thráin began warningly, right hand rising as it _always_ had done, pointer finger extending as it _always_ had done before he clenched his fist and brought his arm back to his side. It was all so familiar, though Thráin’s fingers no longer glittered with gold and jewels, Thorin could not see his hands at all, covered as they were in thick leather gloves. “That throne is nothing to me, I abandoned it a century ago.”

“Why?” Thorin asked. It ought to have been a snarl, a growling demand. He should have bared his teeth and stayed his hands from curling around his father’s throat. But he never bared his teeth and his hands hung limply at his side and his tone was just this side of begging.

“Because I had to,” Thráin snapped, slamming his fist into the wall of the forge, swearing under his breath. Eyes closed, he turned his back to them and leaned heavily upon the wall. 

Balin caught Thorin’s eye and shook his head, though what he meant to communicate, Thorin did not know. He looked wary, but of what, Thorin could not say. He could hardly think himself, all those months ago when he had gone in search of his father, he’d not thought beyond finding him, as if the moment of discovery would set in motion scenes and events that he would only need to bear witness to, that the burden of action would pass from him at long last.

He was tired, he realized. At the beginning of this long, uncertain journey he was _so_ tired. But it had not come time for him to lay his burdens down.

“Oh, pardon us,” Óin sneered, coming to stand in front of Thorin like a shield with his arms folded tightly across his chest. “Are we inconveniencing you? You owe the lad more than that, you _know_ you do. He’s thought you _dead_ all these years.”

 _I haven’t,_ Thorin thought numbly. _I never did._

Thráin looked at his son darkly, half turned away, as if the sight pained him. Then something twisted in his face, the expression breaking from tense resignation to deepest misery. And guilt. “When I tell you, you’ll wish you thought so still.”

He took them away from the forge, to a makeshift living space in a cave, or rather, a burrow naturally formed in the rock. It might seem uncivilized or barbarous to the eyes of Men, but a dwarf would rather live in the shelter of solid stone than any of their flimsy dwellings, so easy toppled, so easily burned. 

Dwalin followed though he kept turning his head, glancing occasionally behind as if he thought to catch sight of Dís trying to rejoin them. 

“You can go back,” Thorin muttered quietly. “If you want.”

“Oh, no,” Dwalin replied darkly. “I want to _hear_ this.”

There was no mistaking the loathing in his voice. Thorin had known for years that Dwalin’s opinion of his parents was only slightly higher than his opinion of the beast that had stolen their home from them. They didn’t talk about it, save on one memorable occasion when Thorin blacked Dwalin’s eye and spilled his blood in wordless defense of them. Their opinions were too contrary to find common ground; Dwalin thought they should have treated him more kindly than they had and Thorin thought he should have worked harder to deserve their kindness.

Dwalin’s dark eyes were hard and flinty beneath his furrowed brow. If looks were flame, Thráin would have been a pile of smouldering ash on the ground before them. 

“Just go,” Thorin urged. “I’m sure he won’t say aught you want to hear.”

“And you?” Dwalin demanded, snagging Thorin’s shoulder and pulling him to a halt. “You’ve got that look about you already and its been a century! I’m not leaving you alone to face _that.”_

“What look?” Thorin asked, sneaking a look over his shoulder, trying not to appear as desperate as he felt, desperate to know that his father wasn’t going to disappear again.

“Like a hound that’s been kicked too many times to put up a fight,” Dwalin said flatly. He looked like he was going to say a great deal more, but he snapped his jaws together and glared for Thráin had turned round to face them. 

On instinct, Thorin froze as if he’d been doing something wrong, then cursed himself silently. All his life when his father looked at him, he braced himself for a criticism, a reproach. How easy it was, a century later, to fall back into old habits. Thorin was older now than his father had been when he disappeared, but for all those years, he still felt as if he _wasn’t ready._

What had he been expecting? That this was some game, like finding lost treasure? Or that it was like a faery story he’d been told when he was a child, neatly wrapped up once the journey was over? Their journey was not over, it was only beginning and Thráin was no gem to be found. 

It was, as Thorin had always known, a childish wish and a foolish fancy that his father would return and take all his cares away, but he had never been able to rid himself of it. Thorin had never controlled much of his own life. When he was a prince in Erebor, he had been a child. When he came of age, his path was dictated by the cruelty of a dragon and the world’s scorn. And then, as if poverty and loss of life was not enough, he found himself victim to the cycles of the moon.

Would not anyone cling to the promise that someone out there was going to come and take it all away? That there lurked just outside one’s grasp the key to ending all the strife and misery of a lifetime ill spent? 

No, Thorin thought to himself as they walked away from the village. Not anyone.

Not his sensible sister, she never held out any hope for their father’s return. He’d _left,_ as Dís said. If he’d wanted to find them, he could have and he didn’t. Thorin wanted to know why, she did not care. Little wonder, of the two of them she had always been the stronger.

It was a poor sort of strength he summoned to withstand Thráin’s gaze, but this time his father did not look disappointed. Just tired, as tired as Thorin felt. 

“Where’d your sister go?” he asked in that tightly controlled, clipped tone he spoke in when he was pushed to the very end of his ability to bear conversation.

“Back, to the others in our Company,” Thorin replied. Then, added as if it mattered, “To see to her sons, I don’t doubt.”

Thráin’s breath caught in his throat and he shook his head. “Not - Dís isn’t old enough to have grown sons.”

“Of course she is,” Óin spoke before Thorin had a chance to reply. His voice was rough, his expression still stormy and he dearly looked as if he wanted to clobber his cousin again. “She married when she was seventy-eight.”

Thorin recognized shock when he saw it on his father’s face, Thráin made no effort to hide the expression. Strange, he never used to display emotions other than disappointment and anger; perhaps he was unskilled in disguising them since, for decades, there had been no one to see him who cared what he felt or did not feel. “So young?”

“Aye, young,” Óin nodded, his voice bitter. “Why shouldn’t she? Mother dead, father run off - why shouldn’t she start a family of her own when she had hardly anyone left to her?”

“Don’t talk about her behind her back,” Dwalin spoke up sharply, folding his arms over his chest. 

Balin meanwhile, had not said anything at all. Thorin had almost forgotten he was there, but he looked at him now and saw why he’d held his tongue. His eyebrows were drawn down over the bridge of his nose and his jaw was clenched so tightly Thorin was amazed he could not hear his teeth grinding. Balin was absolutely _furious_ , but unlike his brother he did not vent his spleen so freely. He’d seen it before, words deliberately held back and swallowed, hands held so stiffly by his sides that they trembled, just barely visibly. 

Balin was not speaking because he did not trust himself to speak. He did not move closer than his place at the edge of their conversation because he did not trust himself to approach Thráin. Óin had already exercised his fury in the bruise that was purpling on Thráin’s cheek, Dwalin seemed inches away from doing the same and Balin held himself in check only by use of his considerable will. Thorin was surrounded by his kin’s anger for his father, he could almost feel it like a living, breathing thing, swirling around him like a mist.

“Why did you leave?” Thorin asked, his voice quiet and strained.

Thráin’s hand passed before his brow, as if he was shielding his eyes from the sun, though the day was not bright. “I never thought I’d see you again,” he muttered without looking at them. “Any of you.”

“Just tell me why,” Thorin implored. “And we’ll go.”

Time stretched on for what seemed like an age. The air seemed thin, suddenly. His heart was pounding rapidly in his chest and it was only when Dwalin nudged him on the arm that Thorin realized he’d been holding his breath, waiting for his father to speak. Waiting to hear his final condemnation.

 _You,_ he imagined he would say when he found his voice again. _I left because of you._

It had been Thorin who asked their grandfather that Frerin be permitted to take part in the battle. Thráin objected from the first. He told Thorin that Frerin was too young to go to battle and when his eldest son vowed that he would look after him he told him that he was _not good enough._ And he had been right. But Thorin was the one who went to his grandfather and reminded him of what the other Clans would think if the younger prince did not join the fight against their enemy. And Thrór was King. When he agreed that Frerin should fight, Thráin had no choice but to obey, fasten his son’s armor and send him to die.

Frerin died horribly under the teeth and claws of the beasts unleashed from the depths of Moria. Fitting, after all, that Thorin who was responsible for his brother’s death should become one of the things that killed him.

Thorin was sure his father had never forgiven him; he had never forgiven himself.

Thráin took his hand away from his face, but he did not single Thorin out. He looked at all of them, unable to train his eyes upon a single face for too long and then asked them a question. “Do you know what we fought that day?”

The rest exchanged glances. Whatever they had been expecting Thráin’s reply to be, this was not it.

“What’s that matter?” Óin demanded. “Thousands fought, same as you did and they didn’t abandon their families after.”

Thráin gave him a haunted look, “Then you don’t know. I did, once I’d seen them. Not wolves, not wargs. I remember - your mother,” his restless gaze fell upon Balin and Dwalin for a moment, “taught me the histories. The ancient histories. Of things fell and fair, Draugluin and Anfauglir and the rest of the beasts bred in darkness to change shape at the command of the Dark One.”

This time, it was Dwalin’s hand closing around Thorin’s upper arm that reminded him to breathe.

Thráin was still talking as he rolled up the left sleeve of his tunic and now he was long past looking any of them in the eye. “I knew what they were when they came pouring out of the gate. I saw what they _did_ and I was grateful that the warriors who fell beneath their jaws died. Aye, _grateful._ Better death than - ”

He broke off and the rest stared at his arm, transfixed as Thráin removed the glove that covered his left hand. The skin of his forearm was marked with deep, old scars that marred the inkwork long ago tapped into his flesh. The thick corded muscle was dented with the impressions of teeth. And the tips of his rough, dwarven hands were curled with dark, wicked looking talons.

With that malformed hand he pushed back, just for an instant, the thick hair covering his ears. They lay flat against his head as they always had done, but bore a tell-tale point. And his teeth, now that they knew what to look for, were uncannily sharp.

“So you see,” Thráin said, replacing the glove with hands that shook though his voice was steady, “I could not come back.”

Óin swore loudly, then stomped off. After an instant’s hesitation, Balin followed him after sparing Thráin an unfathomable glance. It seemed he was about to speak, but he swallowed back the words and left, jerking his head at Dwalin, indicating that he should follow.

Dwalin was not inclined to obey. It was only after Thorin fixed him with a pleading look of his own that he shook his head, snorted, muttered a terse, _“Fine,”_ and stomped off after his retreating kinsmen.

Thorin heard their raised, retreating voices and he knew his father did too. 

_“Don’t you come after me like I’m some doddering grandsire that needs looking after!”_

_“I thought it best that they were left alone - ”_

_“You’re a wretched liar, lad, and that’s the truth of it. I didn’t save a damned one of them. Not a damned one.”_

_“Shut up, both of you. There’s nothing to be done now.”_

Thráin stared at his son, his remaining eye dull and expression lifeless. “Aren’t you going to run off as well? Most wouldn’t ‘bide the presence of a monster in their midst.”

 _I have,_ Thorin thought, his chest aching. _I have for a hundred years._

The words were caught in his throat, burning like bile. He wanted to have out with it, throw himself at his father’s feet and weep in terrible relief to know that he was not alone. To tell Thráin _he_ was not alone.

The moment passed and the burning died away replaced by a terrible chill that enveloped his heart. Thorin couldn’t make himself speak. Couldn’t say the words. Far from finding a balm in them, Thorin knew his father’s mind well enough to know that he would only despair. That he would discover in his son sharing this curse merely another way that Thorin had failed him. And he could not bear to see his father turn away from him again.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Thorin asked. “Not...not Óin or Ama - ”

“What could Óin do?” Thráin demanded. “What tonic could he brew for _this?_ No, it’s a dark evil and it will overtake me tonight as it has done every month for the past century. There’s naught to be done, naught he could do. As for your mother…”

Thráin’s voice trailed off and this time it seemed he was the one trying to speak around a lump in his throat. When he spoke it was in a low, growling rumble. “Her son was dead. If she knew what had happened to me, it would double her grief and I wouldn’t have her grieve for me. If I left, she would hate me. Hatred always lent her strength and grief would have robbed her of the last of it.”

“You’re wrong,” Thorin found himself saying. _There_ was anger at last, sparking in his breast. The feeling was so familiar he clung to it like a child might a favored toy that gave comfort when the nights were dark. “She grieved.”

Thráin shook his head, as if shaking off the words. “How did she die?”

“Slowly,” Thorin replied tightly. “Horribly. With you...and Frerin...she didn’t have anything left to live for.”

Thráin raised his eye and appeared astonished. Thorin was struck with the urge to laugh at him, but he tamped it down as he had done the urge to weep at his feet. “She had you. And your sister - ”

“But that didn’t stop _you,_ did it?” he snarled and this time it was _he_ who turned away and pressed his face into his hands, skin burning. He could feel it even through the leather.

“I did what I did to _protect_ you!” Thráin shot back, but he didn’t touch Thorin or move closer to him. “Do you realize what would have happened if I was discovered? Nevermind the fact that I was sure I’d _kill_ you, slaughter the rest of you! If our enemies - damn it, if our _allies_ knew what I was, what do you think would have become of our people? They already called us dragon-mad monsters. This way, with you as King, you had a _chance.”_

A chance, he called it. Aye, and what a chance it was. Living on a knife’s edge, cursed and burdened with the lives of hundreds who looked to him to lead them.

 _He didn’t know,_ Thorin thought, trying to hold himself together. If he spoke too much or with too much passion his father would see his teeth. It was easier, after a lifetime of hiding, to conceal. _He was trying to save you all. How many times have you threatened to run?_

“I was too young,” Thorin gritted out.

“You can’t have done that badly,” Thráin said in his usual way, disdain creeping into his tone. Even his compliments had the air of criticism. “Not when that wizard wish to see you reclaim the Mountain.” 

Thorin turned, slowly. _“That_ wizard? You mean Gandalf.”

“Aye,” Thráin nodded. While his son’s back was turned, he folded into himself, shoulders hunched, arms crossed, but when Thorin looked at him he straightened, looking imperious whereas before he seemed to be bracing for a blow. “Tharkûn. He waylaid me in a tavern, months ago. I’m sure he knew who I was, but I never gave him the satisfaction of answering his questions.”

_It has been a long time since anything but rumor was heard of Thráin._

So he _had_ seen his father. Thorin remembered that night, it seemed ages ago, in Bree. The wizard never said whether Thráin lived or died. Only that it had fallen to _him_ to reclaim their kingdom. Another burden. Another impossible task. And still the road went on.

“You said Dís had sons,” Thráin said softly. “How many?”

Thorin’s tongue felt like lead in his mouth. He didn’t want to tell him anything, did not want to prolong this awful interview. He wanted to run back to the others, mount their ponies and go...to Erebor, to the Ered Luin, to the Halls of Waiting. He just wanted to flee as far as he could from this spectre, this _ghost_. How could he think he had a father now when he had not for one-hundred years?

“Three,” Thorin replied, just as quietly. “Two are here with us. One remained behind, he’s too young to go abroad.”

Thráin snorted, ruefully. “More children being left. The legacy of this family.”

“Don’t,” Thorin wanted to shout, but ever mindful of keeping his secret the word came out as a hiss. “Don’t say that of her. She didn’t want to leave him. She...she’s not like you. Nothing like you.” _Or me._

“All the better for her, then,” Thráin said with dismal satisfaction. “I had wished that none of you would be a thing like me.”

Thorin had nothing to say to that. After a moment of uncomfortable, too-close scrutiny from his father, he looked away. When he was a boy that would have warranted a scolding. Now Thráin only sighed.

“You truly mean to retake the Mountain?”

“I mean to try,” Thorin murmured. “If the drake is dead or sleeping...all that remains is to find a way in.”

Twigs snapped as Thráin stepped toward him. Thorin looked up, startled, but he stayed an arm’s length away. His hand fumbled with a cord at the back of his neck and he removed something heavy, hung from a leather thong. When first Thorin saw it, he thought it was merely a necklace and made no move to take it.

“Here,” he said tersely. “The only legacy that I am fit to give you.”

It was not a necklace, but a key. Carved, the metal warmed from constant contact with his father’s skin. Mutely, Thorin held his hand out and let it fall into his palm. Thráin never touched him, but Thorin raised astonished eyes and asked, “What door does this open?”

“A side entrance into the armory,” Thráin replied, his gaze locked upon the key in his son’s hand. “There’s a flat place, above the statue of your grandfather that guards the Western wall. The door is carved into a large grey stone, but you won’t see it. On the night of Durin’s Day, the keyhole shines by moonlight.”

Despite the weight of the thing in his hands, Thorin still did not understand. “You’ve kept it,” he said. “All these years. When you never meant to return to us. _Why?”_

Thráin closed his right eye and shook his head. “I can’t give you satisfaction for that question, lad. I don’t know. A thousand times I nearly melted it down or sent it to the bottom of a lake. But I never did. I was sure the last of my hope died on that bloody field...but it didn’t. Again, I’ve sent it on with you. And for that I am so very sorry, Thorin.”

His father’s voice broke when he spoke his name. Thorin saw the glimmer of tears shining in his father’s remaining eye, despite Thráin’s swift move to wipe them away, as if they’ve never been. “I’m sorry it’s come to this. You shouldn’t have suffered this, lad. None of you deserved this.”

“Come with us,” Thorin said abruptly, clutching the key close to his chest with his right hand and reaching out with his left. “Please. Even if you won’t take the throne, help us take the kingdom back, we - I - ”

“No,” Thráin shook his head and avoided his reaching hand. “No, are you daft? I can’t. Not when your cousins have doubtless run off and told everyone what manner of _creature_ I am. They’ll stab me soon as look at me, I’m amazed you haven’t.”

“They won’t have told _anyone,”_ Thorin said with such conviction Thráin looked at him warily, as if he’d gone mad. “They don’t have to know, no one else needs to know.”

“It’s better if they think I’m dead,” Thráin said, his gaze and voice turning inward, as though the words he now spoke to himself he’d repeated a thousand times in his own mind, to ease his own heart. “It’s better this way. And anyway, I’m out of time. The sun’s setting.”

It was not truly, but it would be soon. Though the light still shone beautifully golden soon it would darken to orange, to red, and Thorin would have to hide himself away. They hadn’t made arrangements for him. Thorin’s time was as much gone as his father’s.

There were so many things he wanted to say, accusations he wanted to make, curses he wanted to rain down, and terrified confessions he wanted to make, arms flung round about Thráin’s neck, face buried in his beard.

_Help me. I can’t do this on my own. I am afraid of what might happen if I try._

But they were out of time. And so it was that with a tight nod and not another word was spoken of love or hate or any of the myriad feelings in between that bubbled up in Thorin’s chest when he took in the sight one last time of his father. As Thráin had done so many years before, when Thorin left he neglected even to say good-bye.

Dís was waiting for him when he reached the edge of the marketplace. Thorin was sure she was going to have questions and he braced himself to speak, though it was the last thing he wanted to do. He was shocked and relieved when she didn’t say a word, but instead ran out to meet him and flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. 

Thorin held her for a long, long time. Inhaling her scent and dropping silent tears that disappeared into the fur that lined her coat. _Home._ No matter where they were, Dís always smelled of home to him.

“The others came back,” she whispered. “They haven’t said anything, they looked so fierce, Fíli and Kíli thought it was a trick played on all of you. I haven’t told them otherwise.”

“I won’t,” Thorin said thickly. “I won’t tell them. There’s no need for them to know.”

Dís nodded, agreeing, but not for the same reasons. Thorin thought there was no reason to tell _her_ either. 

In his absence, she’d procured a room for them for the night. Two beds, one for her and Dwalin, one for Fíli and Kíli. With the door locked and barred and the windows shuttered Thorin underwent the agony with a thick roll of leather stuffed between his teeth to keep him from screaming. 

At their uncle’s command, the lads kept their back to him during his grisly transformation. They turned back when it was over, settling down on the floor beside him with a deck of cards. Dís joined them on the floor, but she did not play. As she had when she was small, she tugged Thorin’s head into her lap and stroked his head. She didn’t speak much the rest of the night, only stared into the flames of the small fire they’d lit in the grate and sang, sometimes, while Dwalin played. 

Dwalin brought out his fiddle. The sound of it was often too high and sharp for Thorin to bear like this, but he was grateful for the distraction, even if it made his head ache. Blue Mountain jigs and reels were the accompaniment for the night. Nothing of Erebor.

The next morning, with the key hung round his own neck, tucked out of sight beneath his tunic, Thorin mounted his pony and tried not to sway in the saddle as they trudged on to their destination. Rain began to fall and the clouds hung low over the road, heavy, dark and oppressive. 

They left early. The smithy on the edge of town was dark and they did not meet a single soul on the roadway until the village had long since passed out of sight and, to all but a select few, out of memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was SO HARD to write this chapter. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, it's just that there is SO MUCH that went unsaid, but given who we're dealing with here, it's no wonder. But never fear, this is FAR from over.


	9. Chapter 9

Arriving in Rivendell had them all on edge, but none moreso than Thorin. Sometimes, he wondered if the wizard knew more of him than he let on, but their entrance into the Last Homely House confirmed that Gandalf must not know of his curse. He would never have sent them into the presence of Elves whose ancestors fought the beasts of the Dark One in ancient times if he had.

In his darker moments, lowering his eyes from meeting a too-knowing Elven gaze, Thorin supposed the wizard might have intended for this rest to be his undoing, but he dismissed the thought as irrational. Why bring them so far East if Gandalf sought to finish him off here? Why involve his kin? Why not kill him months ago, when they were alone and he had the chance to make it look like an accident had befallen him on the roadway?

Yet Gandalf did not display any ulterior motives for this unpleasant visit; if Thorin didn’t know better, it seemed he genuinely thought that consulting with the Elves would be somehow useful to them. He spent many hours in their company, strolling along their airy walkways and inviting Thorin to join them in these ramblings - they were invitations that Thorin always declined.

For his part, Thorin was tense, surly, silent, curt to the point of rudeness, and when he overheard Lord Elrond speak of the madness of his family, he almost laughed. Would that this was their only burden. Would that his father had succumbed to it.

Thorin spoke nothing of his encounter with Thráin. Not even to those who knew that he had found his father. As far as the rest of them knew, his silence was due to bitter disappointment. Fíli and Kíli seemed determined to make it up to him by being on their best behavior, though they whispered jokes at their hosts’ expense to him at every opportunity, trying to coax a closed-lip smile out of him for they knew he would never dare laugh in the presence of the Elves. Dís acted as if the entire incident had never happened and Balin and Dwalin followed suit.

Sometimes Thorin caught Óin looking at him intently, as if he wanted to say something, but he did not approach him for more than such conversation as they always had - these tended to involve Óin being annoyed about something and using Thorin as a sounding board. Thorin had learned his role over the years, it was to stand by quietly, nodding and to end by saying, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Whether he did anything or not was generally not the point, Óin simply prefered having his complaints heard.

It was Óin who he had been speaking to before he decided to take a walk on his own. They were all too much and they were all so _concerned_. If they had it out, that would be something, he could tell them not to speak of it, rather than suffering pitying glances and whispers of sympathy that he couldn’t help overhearing.

Somehow that evening he found himself keeping company with Bilbo Baggins, by way of a conflict of interest. Thorin was attempting to avoid their hosts and Bilbo was attempting to find them. They found one another on the balcony and had been intent on ignoring one another until they heard Thorin’s name on Gandalf’s tongue.

The halfling looked at him warily, obviously expecting the Company’s tempestuous leader to give in to rage at the insult, but the bitter smile that crossed Thorin’s lips seemed to alarm him more than the thought of his shouting did.

“I, er,” he licked his lips and rocked back on his heels, pressing his hands together behind his back in a gesture that Thorin found twitchy and nervous-looking. “I am sorry. That you didn’t find your father.”

Thorin did not storm away, as Bilbo might have expected. He squinted at the cold light of the stars overhead and addressed the heavens. When he spoke his voice was soft, “It’s no matter. He’s been gone a long while.”

“My - ah - my father passed when I was very young. Still a tween,” Bilbo said, standing beside Thorin, following his gaze heavenward. “I still miss him. Very much. Every day.”

Thorin had nothing to say to that. Did he _miss_ his father? Not really. Not if he was being truly honest with himself. How could he say that he _missed_ Thráin, his barbed tongue and his knowing gaze that saw every mistake his son made? There was little he could do that pleased him, no matter how he tried - and he tried hard. Thorin was a dwarf used to chasing impossible dreams. The dream of Erebor was no more elusive than the dream of his father’s pride.

“My father is not dead,” Thorin said.

Bilbo made an odd sound, a vague tsking, as if his tongue wanted to say something, but his mind made him close his mouth around the words. “Well. Of course. As you say - ah - it is a very fine night, isn’t it?”

It was an odd thing to say and Thorin looked at Bilbo oddly in reply.

The halfling cocked his head up at him and gestured all around, “Anything’s an improvement after all that rain, naturally, but I haven’t seen so clear a sky since...last midsummer’s eve, surely. I had some cousins visiting, we took out a spy glass, named all the stars we knew and made up names for those we didn’t. Not a bad way to pass an evening.”

Thorin looked up again, eyes picking out the crescent moon instinctively. They had time, but he could little afford to tarry in Rivendell for reasons that had nothing to do with his distaste for Elven hospitality. Only a few weeks more. Then they would be in the thick of the wild, with no inns and plaster walls to separate him from his companions.

He would think of that only when he had to, he reminded himself firmly. Not before. It was useless to make plans when he knew not where they would be, not precisely. If they could make it over the Misty Mountains, that would be something, but it was a journey of weeks, not days, and time was not on their side.

“I mistook fireflies for stars once,” Thorin said, an ironic upward twist to his mouth.

“Did you?” Bilbo asked with wide eyes and evident interest. Or it might have been a sort of morbid curiosity, a desire to keep Thorin talking to see whether or not Lord Elrond’s predictions about the likelihood of his losing his wits seemed likely to be true.

“I was young,” Thorin replied, his gaze far away. “I scarcely remember it, I more remember the story itself. But there had to be a thousand of them, winking and flitting about, clinging to the walls of the cave. I hadn’t been aboveground yet. I just thought they were beautiful and they must be stars.”

“What did you think of stars? When you finally saw them, I mean.”

“I thought I liked the fireflies better,” Thorin replied, lips quirking upward. “They were close, you could catch them and keep them, if you liked. The stars were too far, their light was weak.”

Bilbo nodded thoughtfully, tilting his chin up. The weak, bluish light illuminated the grey patches in his honey-colored hair. “There’s always the moon,” he said brightly.

Thorin turned away, fleeing to the shadows. “So there is. Good night, Master Baggins.”

They left the next day, stealing out like thieves in the night. Lord Elrond would not sanction their quest, just as Thorin knew. It was his lot to be denied at every turn, but he would not bow low and accept the Elvenlord’s ruling. If he could not walk from Rivendell in the light of day, he would skulk under the cover of darkness; he had so little pride left to wound, he hardly felt a pang at the indignity.

They could only move forward now, not back and none of the Company balked at his orders that they go. None questioned him, not even their burglar who only spared one last longing look at the home of their hosts before he took up his walking stick and trudged on behind them.

Dís and Dwalin stuck close to him from thereafter, like body guards or shadows. But for his shorter strides, Thorin was sure Balin would have been right behind him as well. They seemed to expect that he would have a great outpouring of feeling, either rage or despair, but he was destined to disappoint them. Thorin felt numb, like he was a spectator in his own life, watching their journey from outside himself. As if his soul had gotten loose from his body and was traveling just behind, tied by a string.

It was not an unfamiliar feeling, this detached floating. Many a year he’d go days, even weeks in such a state. He didn’t mind, it wasn’t the crushing lethargy and melancholy of his worst moods. He could carry on, subdued, a shadow of himself, but a shadow was better than nothing at all.

* * *

 

The Misty Mountains were as difficult to pass as ever they had been and the early autumn rains fell hard for days and days until the Company was struggling to remember how it felt to march with dry feet.

Thorin kept pace, helping where he could. He could have easily slogged on ahead, but he was ever mindful of the stamina of his companions. Especially one in particular.

Dori had bourne the hobbit on his back more of than not these last days. Bilbo was not built for mountain-climbing, his eyes did not see as well in low light and his hands were not equipt for gripping the sides of the rock for hours on end. Dori was as hardy as any and stronger than most, but even he could not be expected to slog on in the rain with his kit and their burglar besides.

Thorin fell in beside them as they climbed higher and higher over the Misty Mountains, determined not to think about the days of old when their people ruled this range, the safe, dry, warm halls that were now given over to rot and decay.

Dori’s mouth was set in a thin line and Bilbo looked up at Thorin anxiously. The two of them had fallen so far behind the rest that they were in danger of losing sight of the Company. Both dwarf and hobbit assumed Thorin was coming to express his displeasure and it was with identical surprise that they surveyed their leader when he offered to carry Bilbo himself.

“Oh, no - ” Bilbo started, but Dori was practical to the last and seemed only too eager to go along unimpeded. “Really, I can manage - ”

“You cannot,” Thorin said shortly. “Óin’s made it clear already that the air’s too thin for you up here. There’s an allowance for a funeral in the contract, for lacerations and burns, but nothing about tumbling off mountains. I don’t fancy having suit brought against me for negligence. Come along.”

Bilbo did not have an argument for that and, with a brief word of thanks, allowed Thorin to tug him up onto his back. They’d been going along steadily for a few minutes when Bilbo leaned forward and chanced to ask, “Was that a joke?”

“What?”

“Having suit brought against you, was that...were you _joking?”_

It had to be the mountain air; the halfling sounded almost dazed. Then again, Thorin had always been a grumpy bastard, even before.

“If you like,” he said, lips twitching in a small smile that Bilbo could not see. “Steady on, Master Baggins.”

If the Company felt any relief when they located a clean, dry spot of cave to rest in for the night, it was short-lived.

“Not here,” Thorin said shortly when Glóin raced in, determined to get a fire started. “We need to keep moving.”

“Are you mad?” he demanded, above the groans of dismay from the rest of their fellows. “Dwalin’s been to the back, he says it’s all clear, there’s no droppings, no ashes - ”

“I said _not here,”_ Thorin hissed more urgently, grabbing Glóin’s elbow to keep his hands well free of his flint. “It isn’t safe.”

Glóin pulled his arm away with a disgusted look. “Seems safe to me. Safe as we ever are in _such_ company as we keep.”

“What are you grousing about?” Dwalin demanded, giving Glóin a hard glare; he’d heard the tail end of the argument, but not how it began.

“Your cousin,” Glóin began, ever reluctant to call Thorin his ‘king,’ knowing what he did of him, “seems to think we’re all of us ready to walk endlessly in that storm. I’m just letting him know that _some_ creatures need a rest after a long - ”

“I never said you couldn’t rest,” Thorin snapped, patience all but gone. “I said not here. Goblins.”

“Goblins,” Glóin scoffed. “Years back, maybe. Aye, I know, you’ve got a...well. You’re mistaken is all I’m saying and your mistake is liable to drive someone to injure themselves for weariness.”

Dwalin was unmoved. “Goblins?”

“Aye,” Thorin nodded seriously. “Close by...somewhere. It isn’t safe here.”

That was good enough reason for Dwalin to order everyone out again, back into the storm and darkness. Bilbo once again found a place for himself on Thorin’s back, clinging to the dwarven king’s neck, eyes shut against the rain pouring down in buckets. Everyone else crept along the rock as best they could.

They hoped to be over the Misty Mountains before the autumn storms started up, but their stay in Rivendell had taken precious time that they did not have. Not only did they have to contend with slippery rocks beneath wet boots, but Thorin had an additional worry on his mind. There were no trees this high upon the mountains, no place to hide and, despite the thick cloud cover, overhead the moon was nearly full.

Balin remembered and later, when they were finally able to rest away from the wind and rain, sat beside Thorin and asked him quietly, “Have you mistaken the day?”

Thorin shook his head, passing a hand over his face, scrubbing the water away. His sodden coat he’d tossed aside and water dripped down the front of his shirt in rivers. “I have not. But we could not remain there, I told you, I…”

“No need to explain,” Balin said quickly, glancing at Glóin who was wringing out his beard and complaining about ‘tiresome, paranoid sorts who can’t remember they aren’t traveling with clockwork soldiers who only want winding up so they can move.’ “But you have very little time and the way is long.”

Thorin sighed and clenched his jaw. His sharp eyes took in the Company, the youngest sitting in an exhausted heap on the floor, Bilbo was already nodding off to sleep. The journey was hardest on him, he wasn’t built for scaling mountains and none of the Company were capable of going along endlessly through the mountains, not on such rations as they had. They would be safe enough here, for now, they could journey once they were rested up, but Thorin did not have the luxury. “I’m going on ahead.”

“Are you mad?” Dori asked, unable to summon an ounce of decorum at this pronouncement. “You need to rest!”

“I’m not tired,” Thorin said. He wasn’t. This close to the full moon he practically ached with energy that needed to be spent. He was the clockwork soldier, whose spring was wound so tight it threatened to snap. “I’ll go on ahead, the rest of you stay behind and wait for Gandalf to rejoin us.”

“No!” Kíli exclaimed, jumping up and shaking his wet hair out like a dog might dry its pelt. “We’ll go with you! There’s no sense in all of us staying and waiting - ”

“You’ll stay and you’ll wait,” Thorin said, pushing past his nephew to go out into the night.  
“Why?” Bofur asked, nudging Dís in the side as if to prod her to do something to stop him.

She reached out and caught her brother’s sleeve, “I could - ”

“You couldn’t,” Thorin said, gently as he could manage. “You couldn’t keep pace. I’ll find you in two days’ time.”

“There’s got to be another - ”

“There isn’t,” he said, removing her hand from his arm, again, gently. “I’ll find you.”

“Do you promise?” she mumbled, cutting her eyes to the side.

Thorin did not answer; he kissed her forehead instead.

“Uncle,” Fíli came alongside him and plucked at his sleeve, as his mother had done, but he dropped his fingers before they could be peeled off. “Must you?”

Thorin nodded, looking down into Fíli’s eyes, earnest and frightened. It was said that, of his nephews, it was Kíli who took after Frerin the most, in spirit and in mein. But Kíli had his father’s eyes, dark and cheerful. Fíli had the blue eyes of Durin’s line and now, in this moment, Thorin saw his younger brother in them. Frerin had given him such a look before the first charge drove toward the gates of Moria.

“I’ll come back,” he promised, squeezing the lad’s shoulder. “I’ll find you.”

“I don’t like it.”

Dwalin was filling up the mouth of the cave, feet planted and arms folded. Thorin could have easily shoved him aside, but he did not. There were whispers all around that he could hear as easily as another dwarf might hear shouting, _Where’s he off to, then?_ _Why isn’t anyone stopping him?_ _What does he mean he’s got to go alone?_

“It’s not for you to like,” Thorin said simply. “Do you want me to order you?”

“No, but you’ll have to,” Dwalin’s face was deadly serious. Others would read a threat there, but Thorin knew him too well for that. He was angry, of course, but he too feared for him. Feared for Thorin above all else and though in his heart he was grateful, a part of him still chafed at the concern.

“Stand aside,” Thorin said quietly. “That’s an order.”

With a low growl, Dwalin moved away from the cave’s entrance. His fingers twitched, wanting to pull Thorin to him at the last moment, clasp him close, but he stopped himself. That would feel too much like goodbye for either of them.

Only one more stood in his way, one who had not broken out into the buzz of chatter that followed Thorin’s declaration that he was going on alone. Bifur did not block the way, but stood beside it. His expression was neutral, but his hands signed, _Stay. You may stay. Less danger within than without._

Thorin wondered, sometimes, just how much Bifur knew. He had been at the battle, he had seen the same horrors Thorin had and he was wise. One of the canniest, wisest dwarves Thorin had ever known. But surely, he told himself when his suspicions were at their highest, surely Bifur did not realize what sort of creature he was. The toymaker had come to him only in friendship when they settled in the West. Not once had he shown a glimpse of fear or disgust in Thorin’s presence, nary a shudder wracked him when Thorin touched him and he had not once shunned his presence. They weren’t kin. Bifur hadn’t known him before the bite, they’d met, but they were not friends. If he knew what Thorin was, there were no ties between them that could command any lingering affection or loyalty.

 _For you,_ Thorin signed, ducking his head, not meeting Bifur’s black eyes. _Not me._ And then he was gone.

The way was long and the going difficult. Rain blowing into Thorin’s face made it difficult to see and even his strong fingers had difficulty finding purchase in the rock.

 _Just a few miles more,_ he told himself. A few miles to find a place to hide himself away until he could rejoin the Company.

Distantly, it occurred to him that his narrow, winding path of wet and stone was the escape he’d threatened so many times over the years. Without him driving them further East, with Gandalf behind in Elven lands, how could they go on?

 _Let them go back,_ Thorin found himself thinking, as his foot slipped and only the sure grip of his hands saved him from suffering a two-hundred foot drop. _Let them have peace._

Shutting his eyes against the wind, he was struck by memories of their time in the Ered Luin. The warmth of the hearth in Bombur and Thyra’s crowded home. The birdsong in the mornings when he waited with his sister and his cousin for the forge fire to heat. The laughter of his nephews tussling in the sitting room, finding joy in squalor, cheer in deprivation.

It had been something, hadn’t it? Not enough, not nearly enough for his people, but it was _something._ Perhaps it was all he could hope to do. Would their Maker, allow it, Thorin wondered?

Would he try to place his father’s key in the hidden door and find the way barred to him, no longer a son of the line of Durin, no longer a beloved child of their Maker, but a twisted _thing_ born on a battlefield, not a dwarf, not an animal, not a king.

If he did not reunite with them, they would have no choice but to go West. To return and never know riches or glory. But they might be contented. Wasn’t that worth something?

And what would become of him? Thorin, the mad king, gone on a fool’s journey and lost along the way. He would be mourned and forgotten. A pity, they’d say. A pity, but not a surprise.

The wind howling in his ears sounded like wails of lamentation, already begun. Those same wails that sounded from dry throats around the pyres of Azanulbizar. The same wails his mother moaned, quiet and alone, when she knew her husband was gone forever.

Thorin’s stomach twisted at the memory of his father, haunted, but so _sure_ he had done what was right. Alone. A lone dwarf, wandering. It was not good for their people to be alone. It turned their minds to blackness and it made short their lives. But Thráin lived. Long enough to give his son the means to return to their home.

How had he done it, Thorin wondered. How had he held on to _hope_ for so long?

 _I’ll come back,_ he’d told Fíli, only hours ago. _I’ll find you._

Thorin wasn’t sure what he had left of hope, if anything. All he had left were promises to keep. Promises to his sister, his nephews, his cousins, and his people. And one last promise to himself: that he would not become a monster in all things.

Once again, Thorin thought of his family. Dís wanted nothing to do with Thráin and he hadn’t needed fangs or claws to spur her revulsion. To his daughter, Thráin was a monster, but not because of what he was. It was all down to what he’d done. Left them, abandoned them. And the safety of the Blue Mountains, the warm hearths of friends, and her youngest son’s smile would not soothe her heartbreak if she returned to it all without her brother. Thorin did not deserve such selfless devotion, but he knew he had his sister’s. And unlike his father, he could not squander it.

Loyalty was not a virtue monsters possessed. Love was nothing that monsters could feel. The rain dulled his senses and the roaring wind obscured all other sound, but the fog that had settled in his mind lifted suddenly. Clinging to the rock face, Thorin felt more like himself, more like a _dwarf_ than he had in years.

And it was then, dwelling on love and home, promises made and vows broken, that he was set upon by creatures he had not seen until it was too late.

Orcs, a dozen of them, armed and leering. He was at the peak of his strength, but he could not fight them off, though he fought like a wild thing, like the beast he would so soon become. There were too many and they were just as strong as he.

The Black Speech was foreign to his ears after living so long without hearing it, but he caught the words _son_ and _hurry_ and _darkness_. One of the creatures bashed Thorin hard on the side of the head. Stars winked in his vision and the last word he made out, before the dark closed in on him was _vengeance._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REALLY love the idea of the fireflies chat in Rivendell, I wish they'd shot it for the movie - but instead, here's my take on what might have gone down if Thorin was struck by the desire to share a little with Bilbo before The Hug.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was supposed to be more - like, revelations and shock and all kinds of yelling, but I thought I'd save it for later.

He woke in darkness with a metallic taste in his mouth. Thorin swallowed thickly; he’d not idea how long he’d been unconscious, his mouth was dry and his head pounding, shoulder aching and his clothes smelled of the road. He’d been dragged, the plates on his brigantine had torn through the fur and leather that lined his coat and it was in tatters. 

His hair was matted with dust and there was dried blood on his brow as he swept it out of the way. Orcs, he smelled them straight off, even before he heard them murmuring and shouting all around him. It had to be daylight for he woke in his own body. The rain had stopped. And he was a prisoner. 

His arms were not fettered, but he was outnumbered, Thorin saw that once he opened his eyes and looked. Wargs circled the clearing in which he’d been dumped and there were dozens of Orcs attending them, pikes at the ready. Even if he got his bearings, he’d never be able to escape.

Out from their numbers he came, huge, with thick metal barbs fastened - or was it _grown_ \- into his skin. A massive orc, with mottled white skin and black, black, eyes.

The Black Speech grated on his ears again and Thorin struggled to make sense of them. The Orc shouted his words, rallying his fellows. 

Thorin thought he caught the words ‘father’ - or ‘sire,’ perhaps - ‘dwarf,’ and again and again, ‘revenge, revenge, revenge.’

Despite the desperate situation he was in, Thorin understood enough that his temper flared. What were these creatures to speak of _revenge?_ What of his vengeance? What of his people, laid to waste? What of their ancient home, desecrated twice over by foul beings from fell depths? 

Even here, in the wilds, their race was despised. By creatures such as _these._ Too late, Thorin realized, cynically, spitting at the feet of the orc who would exact revenge on _him_ , that his curse mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. How could it, when his own people were already trodden on by these, the most low?

Why didn’t they simply have done with him? All around glinted their crude weapons, pikes, maces, swords. Why drag him here? Why did they not throw him to the ground when they came upon him on the Mountainside?

The answer came to him all at once. The Orcs circled round, turning their faces to the rapidly darkening sky. Thorin looked up, quickly, unwilling to let his eyes linger too long upon one thing, and saw the pale glow of the moon rising over the horizon. 

All around him cries of pain and triumph mingled. And Thorin saw them drop to their knees a moment before he was wracked with familiar shudders and pain and his own screams gave way to howlings.

Before Thorin stood a great white wolf - larger than him, dense with muscle beneath its fur. He hardly had time to draw breath before he was set upon, jaws snapping down, ready to break his neck.

Thorin dodged away; against such an enemy as this, speed was all he had, and agility, but he was no small monster himself and the rest of the creatures had formed a circle around them, there was no chance of escape. 

This was Thorin’s greatest fear, realized. To end as a beast, never to enter the Halls of his kindred. For their fate was to live beneath the earth, apart, and end as such, until all creation came together at the re-Making of the world. Thorin doubted he could be a part of that, monster that he was. But if he had his own shape, that would be _something_ , to bury, at least.

Fate it seemed, would not accord him that dignity. He was to meet his end as so many had before him, torn asunder by claws and teeth, without a sign that had had ever been one of dwarrowkind. Without a kinsman about to weep for him. 

Something within him was not resigned to that fate. Thorin fought back, with all of his strength. He had no idea how long they grappled, snout to snout, fangs and claws bared, but he would fight until the last breath was torn from his body. 

Thorin fought hard, but he was losing. Outmatched and outnumbered he was, ringed by orcs and wargs that added their own blows to those drawn by the one who challenged him. He had to be some offspring of the beast that tore into his shoulder on that awful day at Moria. In his orcish shape, Thorin had not known him, but he recognized the form of the great white wolf, only the eyes of his attacker had been blue. Such a strange thing to keep in his mind. 

It was so different now, a cold autumn night and not a hot summer day, but the fear was the same. The panic. The desperation, all of it the same, coupled with the thought _If this was to be my undoing, why prolong my suffering until now?_

As ever, there were no answers to his prayers. 

The ground came up fast. Thorin slammed upon it, body brought to the very edge of endurance. The sky was growing lighter, but there would be no chance for him to see the sunlight again, he knew. He might be able to will himself to breathe until the transformation was upon him and his wounds vanished, but he knew he would not be given that chance. 

He lay still, prostrate; he would not stand, not if it mean rising on all fours, like an animal. He closed his eyes. Silently, he begged his family to forgive him -

Then a scream filled the air. Not the sound of the animals around him, but animal nevertheless. A screech, like a hawk in the dive, but it filled the air, rattling the very earth beneath his bones. 

There was a gust of hot, filthy breath upon his neck. Then a hot, burning blaze all around. Fire? Or the pain of flesh being torn and reknit as they day came upon them?

Thorin did not know, he tried to open his eyes, but pain tore over him, agonizing and wrenching. All the world was flame and ash and he wondered if he was not living it over again, the Dwarves’ final stand against the Orcs that befouled their sacred homeland. Was this all that awaited him? To relive over and over again that century of exile, fear, and pain?

Cool fingers brushed over his face. Water fell on his closed eyelids. Rain. It hadn’t rained until after they lit the pyres and they had filled the sky with clouds darker than any thunderstorm.

“Nadad,” a voice whispered as it had so long ago. But this voice was deeper, the hands that touched him broader, stronger and when he opened his eyes, he saw his sister as she had been when he left her...was it only the night before?

“Dís,” he managed, roughly. “How - ”

“It’s a _long_ story,” she said, wiping a hand roughly over her face. “Thank - if you can imagine, thank Gandalf.”

Thorin blinked, sat up. The wizard stood a short way off. The earth around him was scorched and a few fires cackled here and there, caught on dry brush. He bent and smothered the flames with his hat, then stood and inclined his head toward Thorin in an amiable way. 

“The others…?” Thorin began, but Dís gestured about before she was finished.

“All here,” she said. “Some are taking up a clothing collection.”

Unclad as he was, Thorin was sure that the remains of his traveling clothes would have made poor rags, had he been of a mind to collect them. He was exhausted, trembling not from cold, but from residual fear. What had _happened?_ How had they found him?

 

Dwalin tossed his cloak over him and fixed him with a chastising look, “Told you it wouldn’t do you a bit of good, going off on your own. Maybe next time you’ll heed me.”

“A thousand apologies,” Thorin managed. Fíli and Kíli knelt beside him then and the latter put his hand to Thorin’s forehead as if feeling for a fever.

“What are you doing?” Fíli asked, smacking his brother’s arm.

“Checking he’s alright, what do you think?” Kíli asked, looking down at his uncle with a frown. “You’re clammy.”

“A thousand and one apologies,” Thorin said. Then, seized by fear, grabbed Dís’s hand hard and hissed, “The others, did they _see_ \- ”

“Not enough,” she assured him, squeezing his hand back. “From where we were, it was just a great gaggle of wargs and wolves. All they knew was you were down in the muddle and we wanted you back. That’s all.”

Thorin relaxed slightly. Knowing what dwarven eyes were like, especially in daylight, he could well believe his sister’s words. But then he saw, standing alone, a small figure slightly set apart from the rest. A figure who was watching him intently. Their burglar, who looked terribly afraid.

But Thorin did not have time to think much on it; the rest were back, with an odd assortment of a cobbled-together wardrobe; Dwalin’s trousers, Balin’s gloves, an extra tunic of Dori’s, an extra coat of Glóin’s and his sister’s spare boots.

“You look ridiculous,” Dori pronounced, once Thorin was dressed. “But you’re in one piece, I’ll never understand how you managed, no sword, no shield - we found them, by the way, you’re very welcome. Savaging is _not_ one of my particular talents.”

“It’s mine!” Nori crowed proudly. “Not to worry, eh, Thorin? I’ve got a good nose for sniffing out other’s valuables.”

“It’ll get you into trouble one day,” Dís rolled her eyes.

“Not a mark on you,” Dori continued, eyes narrowing slightly. “I suppose we came just in the nick of time - once again, you’re _very_ welcome.”

“Thanks,” Thorin managed, a coarse grunt; he hadn’t the energy for this, nor to walk the miles they must tread away from this cursed place. He’d managed to tie on his scabbard and his sword, but the shield upon his arm felt heavy as lead. 

Just then, their hobbit appeared at his elbow, “Trekking over mountains aside, I’m really quite sturdy. If you’d, erm, like a spot of assistance. Pardon my saying so, but you don’t look at all well.”

“I…” Thorin swallowed, both the blood lingering at the back of his mouth and his pride. “I thank you.”

“Oh, that’s all very well,” Dori huffed, quietly, but Thorin heard him. “Give the burglar a proper thanks, after I nearly singed my beard off with those pinecones…”

Closing his eyes, Thorin drew in a deep breath and plodded off. 

“Halflings have keen sight, or so say wizards,” he said haltingly after they had walked (or, more accurately, limped) along for ten minutes in silence.

“Hmm,” Bilbo hummed, staring up at the sky, as if the clouds were of particular interest. “Well. Some. My great-uncle - _third_ great uncle on my mother’s side, well, he’s needed spectacles since he was a tween! It happens sometimes, you know, these little traits that run in families. Long-legged, short-sighted Took, he is, they say he tripped over his wife in the market and that’s how - ”

“Master Baggins,” Thorin interrupted him and stopped walking. He was too tired to speak around things. If their burglar knew...he would rather have out with it. “What did you see?”

Bilbo licked his lips, then pursed them. He squinted at Thorin. The expression looked like concern, but it might just as easily have been the sunlight. “I thought you didn’t look very well. As I said. I am...quite relieved that you were not so badly off as I thought. Anyway, let’s not get too far behind, you never know...never know what sort of beasts are in the wood, do you?”

“No,” Thorin said, after a long, wondering pause. He wondered if he oughtn’t thank the burglar again, but Dori was still in earshot and his head was pounding hard enough already. “You don’t.”


End file.
